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THE VAN DYKE BOOK 



SELECTED FROM THE WRITINGS OF 



HENRY VAN DYKE 



EDITED BY 

EDWIN MIMS, PH.D. 

A NEW EDITION REVISED 
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 

MAXWELL STRUTHERS BURT 



ILLUSTRATED 



CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
NEW YORK CHICAGO BOSTON 



vVU 



Copyright, 1895, 1897, 1899, 1900, 1901, 1902, 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906, 
1907, 1908, 1909, 1911, 1912, 1917, 1919, 1921, BY 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



Copyright, 1906, by harper BROTHERS 




FFB -7 ('S/j 
g)CI.A605691 



^'U^ 



^ I 






THE FOOT-PATH TO PEACE 

To be glad of life, because it gives you the chance to love and 
to work and to play and to look up at the stars; to be contented 
with your possessions, but not satisfied with yourself until you 
have made the best of them; to despise nothing in the world 
except falsehood and meanness, and to fear nothing except cow- 
ardice; to be governed by your admirations rather than by your 
disgusts; to covet nothing that is your neighbor's except his 
kindness of heart and gentleness of manners; to think seldom of 
your enemies, often of your friends, and every day of Christ ; and to 
spend as much time as you can, with body and with spirit, in God's 
out-of-doors—these are little guide-posts on the foot-path to peace. 



CONTENTS 



Introduction 




> 4 




PAGE 

xiii 


PART I— OUT OF DOORS 


A Boy and a Rod 








3 


Little Rivers 








9 


Camping Out 








i6 


the guides 








i6 


RUNNING the RAPIDS 








. i8 


THE TENT 








21 


A LITTLE FISHING 








24 


MORNING AND EVENING 








. 27 


The Open Fire . . . , 








30 


LIGHTING UP . 








. 30 


THE CAMP-FIRE 








. 33 


THE LITTLE FRIENDSHIP-FIRE 








> 35 


THE BIG SALMON 








. 38 


SILVERHORNS . 








, 46 



PART II— POEMS 

Birds in the Morning . 

The Song-Sparrow 

vii 



63 
65 



vm 



Contents 





PAGE 


The Maryland Yellow-Throat . 


. 67 


The Whip-Poor-Will .... 


. . 69 


An Angler's Wish in Town 


. 71 


America 


• 73 


Doors of Daring 


74 


Reliance . ' 


75 


How Spring Comes to Shasta Jim 


• 76 


The Name of France 


• 79 


Peace-Hymn of the Republic 


. 81 



PART in— STORIES 

The Keeper of the Light . 
The First Christmas-Tree . 
The Hero and Tin Soldiers 
The King's High Way . 
The King's Jewel 



85 
106 
124 
128 
132 



PART IV— THINGS TO REMEMBER 
The Arrow . 
Four Things 
Love and Light 
Might and Right 
Joy and Duty 



139 
139 
139 
140 
140 



Contents ix 

PAGE 

Work ......... 141 

The Americanism of Washington . . .142 

Literature . . . . . . . .166 

Education . . . . . . . .167 

Simplicity 169 

PART V— STORY OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE 

Story of the Author's Life from a Child's Point 

OF View ........ 173 

Chronological Table of Henry van Dyke's Life 185 

List of Works of Henry van Dyke . . .186 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Portrait of Henry van Dyke . . Fronfisptecd^'^ 

FACING PAGE 

Henry van Dyke and Grandson . . . 20^ 

''The Little Friendship-Fire" .... 32/^^ 

Lieutenant-Commander Henry van Dyke, 

U. S. N. R. F s^^ 

''1 AM THE Keeper of the Light" . . . 98^ 

The Fields around Lay Bare to the Moon . no •^'^ 



INTRODUCTION 

There are so many angles from which it is possible 
to view the life and achievements of Henry van 
Dyke, a life just now rounding into the fulness of 
maturity, that at first glance it would seem diffi- 
cult to know just what angle to emphasize in an 
introduction of this kind. Here is a man who has 
been scholar, teacher, Presbyterian minister, essay- 
ist, lecturer, poet, short-story writer, diplomat, and 
even, during the war, a naval chaplain with the rank 
of lieutenant-commander, and who in all these under- 
takings has been uniformly successful — bewilderingly 
so. For years a noted preacher in New York, he 
turned to teaching and writing, making his home 
in Princeton, and in an unusually short time was 
discovered to be a poet of power, a short-story 
writer of power, a lecturer of power, the last not only 
in his university work but abroad throughout the 
country. A few years ago, being sent to Holland as 
United States Minister by President Wilson, he made 
an enviable record for himself at a time when the 
post at The Hague was perhaps the most difficult 
and delicate in Europe — a small and extremely im- 
portant island of peace in a sea of war. Here is a 
story, told me by an intimate friend, who was an 
eye-witness. I repeat it for reasons that you will 
understand later. It was during the first days of the 

xiii 



xiv Introduction 

war, when The Hague was crowded with panic- 
stricken Americans trying to get home. They stormed 
the ministry, overwhelmed the outer offices, refused 
to Hsten to the arguments or the commands of clerks 
or secretaries. Suddenly the large folding-doors lead- 
ing into an inner room were flung open, and Henry 
van Dyke stood in the entrance. In the little silence 
that followed he spoke. '*Are there any Americans 
here ? '* There was a puzzled but unanimous '* Yes ! " 
'*0h! I always understood that Americans allowed 
women the first chance/' The panic subsided, and 
the crowd melted away. 

Again, I recall an amusing and characteristic pic- 
ture of Doctor van Dyke at the time when we, our- 
selves, were entering the war. I had gone to him 
for his advice as to what branch of military service 
I should enter. Logically, and with his accustomed 
directness, his first words were: '*As you are well 
above the draft age, and the support of a growing 
family, you cannot, of course, think of any very dan- 
gerous branch." A few weeks later I came across 
him in the uniform of a lieutenant-commander in the 
navy. With the eagerness of a boy, and with a boy's 
flushed cheeks, he told me that not only had he been 
commissioned, but had, by dint of pertinacity on his 
part, I imagine, been promised a post, whenever pos- 
sible, in one of the ships in the first line of battle. 
I am glad to say that the war ended before he got 
this post. He, himself, was also ** beyond the draft 
age, and the head of a family.'* 

So you see, after all, it is not so difficult to know 
which angle of Henry van Dyke's life to choose to 
dwell upon in this introduction — an introduction 



Introduction xv 

going out to the youth of the country. The angle is 
the one of personaHty, of the man behind the preacher, 
the teacher, the writer, and the diplomat. 

Now a man's personality, provided he has attained 
to fame, is usually a very much misunderstood thing. 
To those who do not know him it is all too likely to 
be hidden beneath his work and his achievements, so 
that in the mind is built up an image of perfection or 
imperfection, according to literary or other tastes, 
quite inhuman and altogether at variance with actu- 
ality. On the other hand, those that know the man 
fairly well, the average of his acquaintanceship, 
suffer from a different and not quite so excusable 
near-sightedness. There is no trait of the human 
mind more common than the desire to belittle what- 
ever of eminence one happens to be thrown into con- 
tact with. What obscure motives of jealousy are 
involved it is difficult to say. The fact remains, how- 
ever, and the task of a biographer is invariably seri- 
ously handicapped by this twofold obfuscation: on 
the one hand, the casual and usually untruthful tales 
of the chance acquaintance; on the other, the casual 
and usually untruthful summations of the average 
reader. And yet, in the latter case, this should not 
be so. A man is very definitely and finally what he 
writes, and to discover what he is from his writings 
is a simple task. The former is an inescapable fact. 
It is far better and easier to decipher the character 
of an author from the context of his works than from 
any word of acquaintance or even of intimate friend. 
No matter how much a man may twist or turn, pose 
before the mirror of his own imagination, attempt to 
get away from himself, he cannot do so once he sits 



xvi Introduction 

down with a pen in his hand. He may deceive him- 
self, but he will never deceive the acute reader. A 
man is not made by his works, but the works are 
made by the man. Milton never spoke more clearly 
the truth than when he said: '*And long it was not 
after, when I was confirmed in this opinion, that he 
who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well 
hereafter in laudable things, ought himself to be a 
true poem. . . .'* 

And so Henry van Dyke is just what he seems to 
be in the extracts from his writings contained in this 
volume. It is a fine thing to be, is it not? 
/ At the basis of this personality of his, it seems to 
me, is simplicity, sympathy, and a certain childlike 
eagerness — qualities, I might add, that are at the 
basis of all really great men's characters. He is sim- 
ple because he looks at things directly and hasn't 
time to be anything else but simple ; he is sympathetic 
because all life and all men interest him and because 
he was born with a quick heart. If he were not pos- 
sessed of the two latter traits — they are interactive 
and almost synonymous — he might have been fairly 
successful in other fields of endeavor, but he would 
surely not have been successful as a writer. He is 
childlike in eagerness, because the world is full of so 
many new and constantly to be discovered thoughts 
and places and faces that the years are not long 
enough for him to become old in. This eagerness is 
what has enabled him through youth and maturity 
to undertake and to put through finely and with 
gusto all . the varied tasks that have come to him, 
many of them suddenly and unexpectedly. One 
might say, using a simile that would please him, that 



Introduction xvii 

he has the point of view of the unwearying and en- 
thusiastic fisherman, each pool of hfe he approaches 
holding for his imagination the possibility of a new 
and shining catch. 

You are aware, as I have said before, that the pre- 
ceding paragraph is merely a summation of those 
things generally admitted to be the fundamental 
marks of all first-class men, and yet, although the 
world is well aware of this, none the less again is dis- 
covered a blindness on the part of most of us, because 
we know that to have achieved a certain position of 
eminence a man, especially an artist, must have sim- 
plicity, sympathy, and a large degree of childlike 
eagerness. In approaching him we expect from him, 
no matter what our message may be, an outward 
show of consistent perfection that we do not expect 
from lesser men, and which, if it existed, would indi- 
cate a very decided inward weakness and an entire 
lack of appreciation of the value of time. Doctor 
van Dyke does not abide fools eagerly, and he has a 
very quick and definite temper in the presence of 
what he considers stupidity and meanness and self- 
seeking and pretension. As a result, and as a great 
many people in the world are, at times, stupid or 
mean or self-seeking or pretentious, certain myths 
have grown up about him as they have grown up 
about Tennyson and Stevenson and Wordsworth and 
all other men of note, particularly when the men of 
note happen to be men of letters. 

It has been my good fortune to know Henry van 
Dyke with what I think I can claim is a fair degree 
of intimacy. First, I sat under him as an under- 
graduate at Princeton, both in his lecture courses 



xviii Introduction 

and his seminars; subsequently I was, for a few- 
years, In the same department of teaching, and his 
next-door neighbor; more recently, returning from 
time to time from a far-distant part of the United 
States, I have seen him whenever I could. In other 
words, I have been able to look at him with the 
eyes of a student, a fellow worker, a neighbor, a 
ranchman, and lately those of a fellow writer. Now 
I claim that the eyes of a student, a neighbor, and a 
ranchman are singularly clear eyes, and that the first 
and the last are singularly acute and critical. It Is 
Impossible to fool a student In any very broad way; 
he has the untrained but penetrating perspective of 
youth. A ranchman lives In a country where he 
learns to disregard unessentlals. As to a writer, al- 
though I would claim for that vocation no particular 
clarity of vision where another's personality Is con- 
cerned. In his profession a writer meets so many peo- 
ple who are not what they should be, that more than 
most men Is he Inclined to rejoice when he meets one 
who Is. 

From many memories of Henry van Dyke, three 
pick themselves out In my mind as essentially char- 
acteristic, as memories I particularly wish to pre- 
serve, and, where the last two are concerned, wish to 
duplicate. To begin with, there Is a crowded lecture- 
room with the sun streaming Into It, and perhaps 
a hundred young men or so, naturally Inattentive, 
at the moment completely absorbed, and amongst 
them a goodly number, at least, who find themselves 
in the position of one young man who Is suddenly 
lifted up and caught up and held by the thrilling 
beauty of words. Reincarnation Is a difficult thing 



Introduction xix 

to accomplish ; so difficult that I should say that only 
a poet himself can reincarnate the poetry and per- 
sonality and thoughts of poets who are dead. When 
such a thing is accomplished, it is, at all events, an 
exciting matter, even to those least disposed to be- 
come excited. This is the particular reason why 
Henry van Dyke is a teacher not to be forgotten, and 
an outstanding critic, incidentally, of Tennyson. 

My second essential memory of Doctor van Dyke 
IS of him in his home here in Princeton, **Avalon,'' 
so named because he is a lover of Tennyson, and 
after which he has named the collected edition of his 
works, published this year by Scribner's. Here is 
what he has to say about it in the foreword to the 
Avalon Edition: 

"This edition is named after the old house where 
I live — ^when not on a journey, or gone a-fishing, or 
following up some piece of work that calls me far 
away. 

**It is a pleasant camp, this Avalon, with big, 
friendly trees around it, and an ancient garden be- 
hind it, and memories of the American Revolution 
built into its walls, and the gray towers of Prince- 
ton University just beyond the tree-tops. ..." 

It is, indeed, "a pleasant camp" and a fitting one, 
and in it is a library, a large, book-lined room, with 
an open fire, and good smoking- tobacco, and framed 
pictures, and letters, the signatures of which are ex- 
tremely stirring. Stevenson, I think it was, who 
spoke of conversation as the cream of life. It is 
rapidly becoming skimmed milk in America, in this 
age of slang, and hurry, and specialization, and so- 
called efficiency. Jn '^the pleasant camp" Doctor 



XX Introduction 

van Dyke speaks of, It is found in abundance, based, 
as all good conversation is, upon knowledge, both of 
books and men, flavored at times, and when neces- 
sary, with the wine of erudition, and, as conversation 
should be, always simple and humorous and pene- 
trating and understanding. 

The third essential memory has to do with what, 
I think, is perhaps the most fundamentally impor- 
tant thing in Henry van Dyke's character — in fact, 
I can imagine him wondering why I haven't got to 
it long ago — that is, his love of the land, the aspect 
of him as an outdoor man, more especially a fisher- 
man. Perhaps you are astonished that I lay so 
much emphasis upon this; perhaps you have never 
thought of the mysterious and beautiful connection 
of eye and hand, body and mind; perhaps you have 
never reflected upon the fact that man, being still in 
many ways an animal — and it is most excellent that 
he is — has, let us say, toward his own particular 
'*lair" a passionate love such as he bears toward few 
other things. City-dwellers will tell you otherwise, 
but don't believe them. The reason why England is 
unshakable is because every Englishman, no matter 
where he lives, has memories of a stream, or a moor, 
or a seacoast, or a garden, or a house, with which 
are shaken his dreams. Englishmen are country- 
dwellers even when they are born in cities; all too 
often Americans, unfortunately, are not. I hazard 
the statement that so important is this *^love of 
the land ''that you cannot be a good American 
unless you have fished and made part of yourself 
some American river, or have watched some Ameri- 
can mountain range, or have known, so that you 



Introduction xxi 

cannot forget, some American meadow, or wood, or 
farm. You will then realize that whatever to you 
may seem to be wrong with this or that, or the gov- 
ernment, there is none the less something essentially 
right with the country where you were born, or to 
which it has been your good fortune to be brought. 
Henry van Dyke, therefore, teaches not only a love 
of brooks and trees and pools and birds and fishing — 
that most thought-constructive of sports — he teaches 
— I am not speaking of his essays bearing directly A 
upon the subject — the best sort of Americanism as 
well, the only valid, permanent Americanism there 
IS ; teaches it at a time when it is most necessary that 
it should be taught. And, to step aside for a mo- 
ment, how beautifully he teaches it ! After many 
years I have read again ''Little Rivers,'' and again I 
received the same shock of delight, for here is sun- 
light and green shadows and warm, open places made 
into words. 

There is no writer living to-day whose works 
should be more studied and read by American youth 
than the works of Henry van Dyke. We live in a 
confused, troublous, questioning time. We thirst too 
much for short-cuts. Perhaps you are, as Henry 
van Dyke describes himself, ''an adventurous conser- 
vative*'; perhaps, on the other hand, you are a radi- 
cal. Both are good things to be if accompanied by 
common sense and a capacity for work; both are a 
flash in the pan if only cleverness and ignorance are 
their backgrounds. Remember this: first comes the 
man, then comes his labor, then comes his discrimi- 
nation, and finally comes his finished product. More 
than ever before is it needful for us to learn the les- 



xxii Introduction 

sons of patience, arduous toil, careful selection, honest 
thinking, and beauty brought about by the appliance 
of logic to material ; and there is no American writer 
who teaches these things more clearly than Henry 
van Dyke. 

Before I close I must mention my indebtedness to 
Professor Edwin Mims, Ph.D., Professor of English 
Literature at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Ten- 
nessee, who in 1905 collected and edited the prede- 
cessor of this book.* It is to his careful work that 
this present book, in reality, owes its form and the 
majority of the selections from Doctor van Dyke's 
writings that it contains. I have retained from the 
former volume, as well, a letter from Doctor van 
Dyke's oldest daughter, describing her childhood rec- 
ollections of her father. It supplements, in a way 
otherwise impossible to obtain, the brief sketch I have 
attempted in these pages of Doctor van Dyke's per- 
sonality. 

Maxwell Struthers Burt. 

Princeton, New Jersey, April 10, 1920. 

*"The Van Dyke Book." Selected from the writings of Henry van 
Dyke, by Edwin Mims, Ph.D., Professor of Enghsh Literature in Trinity 
College, Durham, N. C. (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1905.) 



PART I 
OUT OF DOORS 



A BOY AND A ROD 

I 

Strangely enough, you cannot recall the boy him- 
self at all distinctly. There is only the faintest image 
of him on the endless roll of films that has been 
wound through your mental camera; and in the very 
spots where his small figure should appear, it seems 
as if the pictures were always light-struck. Just a 
blur, and the dim outline of a new cap, or a well- 
beloved jacket with extra pockets, or a much-hated 
pair of copper-toed shoes — that is all you can see. 

But the people that the boy saw, the companions 
who helped or hindered him in his adventures, the 
sublime and marvellous scenes among the Catskills 
and the Adirondacks and the Green Mountains, in 
the midst of which he lived and moved and had his 
summer holidays — all these stand out sharp and 
clear, as the '*Bab Ballads*' say, 

"Photographically lined 
On the tablets of your mind.** 

And most vivid do these scenes and people become 
when the vague and irrecoverable boy who walks 
among them carries a rod over his shoulder, and you 
detect the soft bulginess of wet fish about his clothing, 
and perhaps the tail of a big one emerging from his 
pocket. Then it seems almost as if these were things 
that had really happened, and of which you your- 
self were a great part. 

3 



4 Out of Doors 

Now this was the way in which the boy came into 
possession of his rod. He was by nature and hered- 
ity one of those predestined anglers whom Izaak 
Walton tersely describes as ''born so." His earliest 
passion was fishing. His favorite passage in Holy 
Writ was that place where Simon Peter throws a 
line into the sea and pulls out a great fish at the 
first cast. 

But hitherto his passion had been indulged under 
difficulties — with improvised apparatus of cut poles, 
and flabby pieces of string, and bent pins, which 
always failed to hold the biggest fish; or perhaps 
with borrowed tackle, dangling a fat worm in vain 
before the noses of the staring, supercilious sunfish 
that poised themselves in the clear water around the 
Lake House dock at Lake George; or, at best, on 
picnic parties across the lake, marred by the humili- 
ating presence of nurses, and disturbed by the obsti- 
nate refusal of old Horace, the boatman, to believe 
that the boy could bait his own hook, but sometimes 
crowned with the delight of bringing home a whole 
basketful of yellow perch and goggle-eyes. Of 
nobler sport with game fish, like the vaulting salmon 
and the merry, pugnacious trout, as yet the boy had 
only dreamed. But he had heard that there were 
such fish in the streams that flowed down from the 
mountains around Lake George, and he was at the 
happy age when he could believe anything — if it was 
sufficiently interesting. 

There was one little river, and only one, within 
his knowledge and the reach of his short legs. It 
was a tiny, lively rivulet that came out of the woods 
about half a mile away from the hotel, and ran down 



A Boy and a Rod 5 

eater-cornered through a sloping meadow, crossing 
the road under a flat bridge of boards, just beyond 
the root-beer shop at the lower end of the village. 
It seemed large enough to the boy, and he had long 
had his eye upon it as a fitting theatre for the begin- 
ning of a real angler's life. Those rapids, those falls, 
those deep, whirling pools with beautiful foam on 
them like soft, white custard, were they not such 
places as the trout loved to hide in ? 

You can see the long hotel piazza, with the gos- 
sipy groups of wooden chairs standing vacant in the 
early afternoon; for the grown-up people are dallying 
with the ultimate nuts and raisins of their mid-day 
dinner. A villainous clatter of innumerable little 
vegetable-dishes comes from the open windows of the 
pantry as the boy steals past the kitchen end of the 
house, with Horace's lightest bamboo pole over his 
shoulder, and a little brother in skirts and short white 
stockings tagging along behind him. 

When they come to the five-rail fence where the 
brook runs out of the field, the question is. Over or 
under? The lowlier method seems safer for the 
little brother, as well as less conspicuous for persons 
who desire to avoid publicity until their enterprise 
has achieved success. So they crawl beneath a bend 
in the lowest rail— only tearing one tiny three-cor- 
nered hole in a jacket, and making some juicy green 
stains on the white stockings — and emerge with sup- 
pressed excitement in the field of the cloth of butter- 
cups and daisies. 

What an afternoon — how endless and yet how 
swift ! What perilous efforts to leap across the 
foaming stream at its narrowest points; what es- 



6 Out of Doors 

capes from quagmires and possible quicksands; what 
stealthy creeping through the grass to the edge of 
a likely pool, and cautious dropping of the line into 
an unseen depth, and patient waiting for a bite, un- 
til the restless little brother, prowling about below, 
discovers that the hook is not in the water at all, 
but lying on top of a dry stone; thereby proving that 
patience is not the only virtue, or, at least, that it 
does a better business when it has a small vice of 
impatience in partnership w^ith it ! 

How tired the adventurers grow as the day wears 
away; and as yet they have taken nothing! But 
their strength and courage return as if by magic 
when there comes a surprising twitch at the line in 
a shallow, unpromising rapid, and with a jerk of the 
pole a small, wiggling fish is whirled through the air 
and landed thirty feet back in the meadow. 

**For pity's sake, don't lose him! There he is 
among the roots of the blue flag.'* 

^Tve got him! How cold he is — how slippery — 
how pretty! Just like a piece of rainbow!" 

''Do you see the red spots? Did you notice how 
gamy he was, little brother; how he played? It is 
a trout, for sure; a real trout, almost as 4ong as your 
hand." 

So the two lads tramp along up the stream, chat- 
tering as if there were no rubric of silence in the 
angler's code. Presently another simple-minded 
troutling falls a victim to their unpremeditated art; 
and they begin already, being human, to wish for 
something larger. In the very last pool that they 
dare attempt — a dark hole under a steep bank, 
where the brook issues from the woods — the boy 



A Boy and a Rod 7 

drags out the hoped-for prize, a splendid trout, 
longer than a new lead-pencil. But he feels sure 
that there must be another, even larger, in the same 
place. He swings his line out carefully over the 
water, and just as he is about to drop it in, the little 
brother, perched on the sloping brink, slips on the 
smooth pine-needles, and goes sliddering down into 
the pool up to his waist. How he weeps with dis- 
may, and how funnily his dress sticks to him as he 
crawls out ! But his grief is soon assuaged by the 
privilege of carrying the trout strung on an alder 
twig; and it is a happy, muddy, proud pair of urchins 
that climb over the fence out of the field of triumph 
at the close of the day. 

What does the father say, as he meets them in 
the road ? Is he frowning or smiling under that big 
brown beard ? You cannot be quite sure. But one 
thing is clear: he is as much elated over the capture 
of the real trout as anyone. He is ready to deal 
mildly with a little irregularity for the sake of en- 
couraging pluck and perseverance. He makes the 
boy feel that running away with his little brother to 
go fishing is an offence which must never be repeated, 
and then promises him a new fishing-rod, all his own, 
if he will always ask leave before he goes out to use it. 

The arrival of the rod, in four joints, with an extra 
tip, a brass reel, and the other luxuries for which a 
true angler would willingly exchange the necessaries 
of life, marked a new epoch in the boy's career. One 
of the first events that followed was the purchase of 
a pair of high rubber boots. Inserted in this armor 
of modern infantry, and transfigured with delight, 
the boy clumped through all the little rivers within 



8 Out of Doors 

a circuit of ten miles from Caldwell, and began to 
learn by parental example the yet unmastered art of 
complete angling. 

But because some of the streams were deep and 
strong, and his legs were short and slender, and his 
ambition was even taller than his boots, the father 
would sometimes take him up pickaback, and wade 
along carefully through the perilous places — which 
are often, in this world, the very places one longs to 
fish in. So, in your remembrance, you can see the 
little rubber boots sticking out under the father's 
arms, and the rod projecting over his head, and the 
bait dangling down unsteadily into the deep holes, 
and the delighted boy hooking and playing and 
basketing his trout high in the air. 



LITTLE RIVERS 

A RIVER IS the most human and companionable of 
all inanimate things. It has a Hfe, a character, a 
voice of its own, and is as full of good fellowship as 
a sugar-.maple is of sap. It can talk in various 
tones, loud or low, and of many subjects, grave and 
gay. Under favorable circumstances it will even 
make a shift to sing, not in a fashion that can be 
reduced to notes and set down in black and white on 
a sheet of paper, but in a vague, refreshing manner, 
and to a wandering air that goes 

''Over the hills and far away." 

For real company and friendship, there is nothing 
outside of the animal kingdom that is comparable to 
a river. 

I will admit that a very good case can be made 
out in favor of some other objects of natural affec- 
tion. Trees seem to come very close to our life. 
They are often rooted in our richest feelings, and 
our sweetest memories, like birds, build nests in their 
branches. I remember, the last time that I saw 
James Russell Lowell (only a few weeks before his 
musical voice was hushed), he walked out with me 
into the quiet garden at Elmwood to say good-by. 
There was a great horse-chestnut tree beside the 
house, towering above the gable, and covered with 
blossoms from base to summit — a pyramid of green 
supporting a thousand smaller pyramids of white. 

9 



10 Out of Doors 

The poet looked up at it with his gray, pain-furrowed 
face, and laid his trembling hand upon the trunk. 
'*I planted the nut,'' said he, '*from which this tree 
grew; and my father was with me and showed me 
how to plant it/' 

Yes, there is a good deal to be said in behalf of 
tree-worship. But when I can go where I please and 
do what I like best, my feet turn not to a tree, but 
to the bank of a river, for there the musings of soli- 
tude find a friendly accompaniment, and human in- 
tercourse is purified and sweetened by the flowing, 
murmuring water. It is by a river that I would 
choose to make love, and to revive old friendships, 
and to play with the children, and to confess my 
faults, and to escape from vain, selfish desires, and 
to cleanse my mind from all the false and foolish 
things that mar the joy and peace of living. Like 
David's hart, I pant for the water-brooks. There is 
wisdom in the advice of Seneca, who says, ** Where 
a spring rises, or a river flows, there should we build 
altars and offer sacrifices." 

Every river that flows is good, and has something 
worthy to be loved. But those that we love most 
are always the ones that we have known best — the 
stream that ran before our father's door, the current 
on which we ventured our first boat or cast our first 
fly, the brook on whose banks we first picked the 
twin-flower of young love. I am all for the little 
rivers. Let those who will, chant in heroic verse 
the renown of Amazon and Mississippi and Niagara, 
but my prose shall flow — or straggle along at such a 
pace as the prosaic muse may grant me to attain — 
in praise of Beaverkill and Neversink and Swiftwater, 



Little Rivers ii 

of Saranac and Raquette and Ausable, of Allegash 
and Aroostook and Moose River. 

I will set my affections upon rivers that are not 
too great for intimacy. And if by chance any of 
these little ones have also become famous, like the 
Tweed and the Thames and the Arno, I at least will 
praise them, because they are still at heart little 
rivers. 

The real way to know a little river is not to glance 
at it here or there in the course of a hasty journey, 
nor to become acquainted with it after it has been 
partly civilized and spoiled by too close contact with 
the works of man. You must go to its native haunts; 
you must see it in youth and freedom; you must ac- 
commodate yourself to its pace, and give yourself to 
its influence, and follow its meanderings whitherso- 
ever they may lead you. 

Now, of this pleasant pastime there are three prin- 
cipal forms. You may go as a walker, taking the 
riverside path, or making a way for yourself through 
the tangled thickets or across the open meadows. 
You may go as a sailor, launching your light canoe 
on the swift current and committing yourself for a 
day, or a week, or a month, to the delightful uncer- 
tainties of a voyage through the forest. You may 
go as a wader, stepping into the stream and going 
down with it, through rapids and shallows and deeper 
pools, until you come to the end of your courage and 
the daylight. Of these three ways I know not which 
is best. But in all of them the essential thing is that 
you must be willing and glad to be led; you must 
take the little river for your guide, philosopher, and 
friend. 



12 Out of Doors 

And what a good guidance it gives you. How 
cheerfully it lures you on into the secrets of field and 
wood, and brings you acquainted with the birds and 
the flowers. The stream' can show you, better than 
any other teacher, how nature works her enchant- 
ments with color and music. 

Go out to the Beaverkill 

**In the tassel-tlme of spring," 

and follow its brimming waters through the budding 
forests, to that corner which we call the Painter's 
Camp. See how the banks are all enamelled with the 
pale hepatica, the painted trillium, and the delicate 
pink- veined spring beauty. A little later in the year, 
when the ferns are uncurling their long fronds, the 
troops of blue and white violets will come dancing 
down to the edge of the stream, and creep ventur- 
ously out to the very end of that long, moss-covered 
log in the water. Before these have vanished, the 
yellow crow-foot and the cinquefoil will appear, fol- 
lowed by the star-grass and the loose-strife and the 
golden St. John's-wort. Then the unseen painter be- 
gins to mix the royal color on his palette, and the red 
of the bee-balm catches your eye. If you are lucky, 
you may find, in midsummer, a slender fragrant spike 
of the purple-fringed orchis, and you cannot help 
finding the universal self-heal. Yellow returns in the 
drooping flowers of the jewel-weed, and blue repeats 
itself in the trembling harebells, and scarlet is glori- 
fied in the flaming robe of the cardinal-flower. Later 
still, the summer closes in a splendor of bloom, with 
gentians and asters and golden-rod. 

You never get so close to the birds as when you 



Little Rivers 13 

are wading quietly down a little river, casting your 
fly deftly under the branches for the wary trout, but 
ever on the lookout for all the various pleasant things 
that nature has to bestow upon you. Here you shall 
come upon the cat-bird at her morning bath, and hear 
her sing, in a clump of pussy-willows, that low, ten- 
der, confidential song which she keeps for the hours 
of domestic intimacy. The spotted sandpiper will 
run along the stones before you, crying, ''Wet-feet, 
wet-feet!'^ and bowing and teetering in the friendliest 
manner, as if to show you the way to the best pools. 
In the thick branches of the hemlocks that stretch 
across the stream, the tiny warblers, dressed in a 
hundred colors, chirp and twitter confidingly above 
your head; and the Maryland yellow- throat, flitting 
through the bushes like a little gleam of sunlight, 
calls ** Witchery, witchery, witchery !'' That plaintive, 
forsaken, persistent note, never ceasing, even in the 
noonday silence, comes from the wood-pewee, droop- 
ing upon the bough of some high tree, and complain- 
ing, like Mariana in the moated grange, '' Weary, 
weary, wSary !'' 

When the stream runs out into the old clearing, 
or down through the pasture, you find other and live- 
lier birds — the robin, with his sharp, saucy call and 
breathless, merry warble; the bluebird, with his notes 
of pure gladness, and the oriole, with his wild, flexi- 
ble whistle; the chewink, bustling about in the 
thicket, talking to his sweetheart in French, '' Cherie, 
cherie r^ and the song-sparrow, perched on his favor- 
ite limb of a young maple, close beside the water, 
and singing happily, through sunshine and through 
rain. This is the true bird of the brook, after all: 



14 Out of Doors 

the winged spirit of cheerfulness and contentment, 
the patron saint of little rivers, the fisherman's friend. 
He seems to enter into your sport with his good wishes, 
and for an hour at a time, while you are trying every 
fly in your book, from a black gnat to a white miller, 
to entice the crafty old trout at the foot of the 
meadow-pool, the song-sparrow, close above you, 
will be chanting patience and encouragement. And 
when at last success crowns your endeavor, and the 
party-colored prize is glittering in your net, the bird 
on the bough breaks out in an ecstasy of congratula- 
tion: '^ Catch 'iniy catch Hm^ catch Hm ; oh, what a 
pretty fellow ! sweet ! '* 

There are other birds that seem to have a very 
different temper. The blue-jay sits high up in the 
withered pine-tree, bobbing up and down, and call- 
ing to his mate in a tone of affected sweetness, ^^ Sa- 
Itlte-her, saliXte-her y'' but when you come in sight he 
flies away with a harsh cry of ^^ Thief, thief , thief/'* 
The kingfisher, ruffling his crest in solitary pride on 
the end of a dead branch, darts down the stream at 
your approach, winding up his reel angrily as if he 
despised you for interrupting his fishing. And the 
cat-bird, that sang so charmingly while she thought 
herself unobserved, now tries to scare you away by 
screaming '' Snake y snake!'' 

As evening draws near, and the light beneath the 
trees grows yellower, and the air is full of filmy in- 
sects out for their last dance, the voice of the little 
river becomes louder and more distinct. The true 
poets have often noticed this apparent increase in 
the sound of flowing waters at nightfall. Gray, in 
one of his letters, speaks of ** hearing the murmur of 



Little Rivers 15 

many waters not audible in the daytime/' Words- 
worth repeats the same thought almost in the same 
words: 

"A soft and lulling sound is heard 
Of streams inaudible by day." 

And Tennyson, in the valley of Cauteretz, tells of 
the river 

"Deepening his voice with deepening of the night." 

It is in this mystical hour that you will hear the 
most celestial and entrancing of all bird-notes, the 
songs of the thrushes — the hermit, and the wood- 
thrush, and the veery. Sometimes, but not often, 
you will see the singers. I remember once, at the 
close of a beautiful day's fishing on the Swiftwater, 
I came out, just after sunset, into a little open space 
in an elbow of the stream. It was still early spring, 
and the leaves were tiny. On the top of a small 
sumac, not thirty feet away from me, sat a veery. 
I could see the pointed spots upon his breast, the 
swelling of his white throat, and the sparkle of his 
eyes, as he poured his whole heart into a long liquid 
chant, the clear notes rising and falling, echoing and 
interlacing in endless curves of sound. Other bird- 
songs can be translated into words, but not this. 
There is no interpretation. It is music — as Sidney 
Lanier defines it, 

**Love in search of a word." 



CAMPING OUT 



THE GUIDES 



They are all French Canadians of unmixed blood, 
descendants of the men who came to New France 
with Champlain, three centuries ago. Ferdinand 
Larouche, our head guide, is a stocky little fellow, 
a ** sawed off'* man, not more than five feet two 
inches tall, but every inch of him is pure vim. He 
can carry a big canoe or a hundredweight of camp 
stuff over a mile portage without stopping to take 
breath. He is a capital canoe-man, with prudence 
enough to balance his courage, and a fair cook, with 
plenty of that quality which is wanting in the ordi- 
nary cook of commerce — good humor. Always jok- 
ing, whistling, singing, he brings the atmosphere of 
a perpetual holiday along with him. His weather- 
worn coat covers a heart full of music. He has two 
talents which make him a marked man among his 
comrades: he plays the fiddle to the delight of all 
the balls and weddings through the country-side, 
and he speaks English to the admiration and envy of 
the other guides. But, like all men of genius, he is 
modest about his accomplishments. **H'I not spik 
good h'English — h'only for camp — fishin', cookin', 
dhe voyage — h'all dhose t'ings.*' The aspirates puz- 
zle him. He can get through a slash of fallen timber 
more easily than a sentence full of *'this'* and ''that.'' 

i6 



Camping Out 17 

Sometimes he expresses his meaning queerly. He 
was telling me once about his farm, "not far off here, 
in dhe Riviere au Cochon, river of dhe pig, you call 
'im. H'l am a widow, got five sons, t'ree of dhem 
are girls/' But he usually ends by falling back into 
French, which, he assures you, you speak to perfec- 
tion, "much better than the Canadians; the French 
of Paris, in short — M'sieu' has been in Paris?'* 
Such courtesy is born in the blood, and is irresistible. 
You cannot help returning the compliment and as- 
suring him that his English is remarkable, good 
enough for all practical purposes, better than any of 
the other guides can speak. And so it is. 

His brother Francois is a little taller, a little thin- 
ner, and considerably quieter than Ferdinand. He 
laughs loyally at his brother's jokes, and sings the 
response to his songs, and wields a good second pad- 
dle in the canoe. 

Jean — commonly called Johnny — Morel is a tall, 
strong man of fifty, with a bushy red beard that 
would do credit to a pirate. But when you look at 
him more closely, you see that he has a clear, kind 
blue eye and a most honest, friendly face under his 
slouch hat. He has travelled these woods and waters 
for thirty years, so that he knows the way through 
them by a thousand familiar signs, as well as you 
know the streets of the city. He is our pathfinder. 

The bow paddle in his canoe is held by his son 
Joseph, a lad not quite fifteen, but already as tall 
and almost as strong as a man. "He is yet of the 
youth," said Johnny, "and he knows not the affairs 
of the camp. This trip is for him the first — it is his 
school — but I hope he will content you. He is good, 



1 8 Out of Doors 

M'sieu', and of the strongest for his age. I have 
educated already two sons in the bow of my canoe. 
The oldest has gone to Pennsylvanie ; he peels the 
bark there for the tanning of leather. The second 
had the misfortune of breaking his leg, so that he 
can no longer kneel to paddle. He has descended 
to the making of shoes. Joseph is my third pupil. 
And I have still a younger one at home waiting to 
come into my school." 

A touch of family life like that is always refresh- 
ing, and doubly so in the wilderness. For what is 
fatherhood at its best, everywhere, but the training 
of good men to take the teacher's place when his 
work is done? Some day, when Johnny's rheuma- 
tism has made his joints a little stiffer and his eyes 
have lost something of their keenness, he will be 
wielding the second paddle in the boat, and going 
out only on the short and easy trips. It will be 
young Joseph that steers the canoe through the dan- 
gerous places, and carries the heaviest load over the 
portages, and leads the way on the long journeys. 



II 

RUNNING THE RAPIDS 

We embarked our tents and blankets, our pots 
and pans, and bags of flour and potatoes and bacon 
and other delicacies, our rods and guns, and last, but 
not least, our axes (without which man in the woods 
is a helpless creature), in two birch-bark canoes, and 
went flying down the Saguenay. 

It is a wonderful place, this outlet of Lake St. 



Camping Out 19 

John. All the floods of twenty rivers are gathered 
here, and break forth through a net of islands in a 
double stream. The southern outlet is small, and 
flows somewhat more quietly at first. But the north- 
ern outlet is a huge confluence and tumult of waters. 
You see the set of the tide far out in the lake, slid- 
ing, driving, crowding, hurrying in with smooth cur- 
rents and swirling eddies toward the corner of escape. 
By the rocky cove where the Island House peers out 
through the fir-trees, the current already has a per- 
ceptible slope. It begins to boil over hidden stones 
in the middle, and gurgles at projecting points of 
rock. A mile farther down there is an islet where 
the stream quickens, chafes, and breaks into a rapid. 
Behind the islet it drops down in three or four foam- 
ing steps. On the outside it makes one long, straight 
rush into a line of white-crested standing waves. 

As we approached, the steersman in the first canoe 
stood up to look over the course. The sea was high. 
Was it too high? The canoes were heavily loaded. 
Could they leap the waves ? There was a quick talk 
among the guides as we slipped along, undecided 
which way to turn. Then the question seemed to 
settle itself, as most of these woodland questions do, 
as if some silent force of Nature had the casting-vote. 
*'Let*s try it!" cried Ferdinand, ''Come on!'* In a 
moment we were sliding down the smooth back of 
the rapid, directly toward the first big wave. The 
rocky shore went by us like a dream; we could feel 
the motion of the earth whirling around with us. 
The crest of the billow in front curled above the bow 
of the canoe. ''Stop! Stop! Slowly!'* A swift 
stroke of the paddle checked the canoe, quivering and 



20 Out of Doors 

prancing like a horse suddenly reined in. The wave 
ahead, as if surprised, sank and flattened for a second. 
The canoe leaped through the edge of it, swerved to 
one side, and ran gayly down along the fringe of the 
line of billows, into quieter water. 

Our guides began to shout, and joke each other, 
and praise their canoes. 

*'You grazed that villain rock at the corner," said 
Jean; ''didn't you know where it was?'' 

*'Yes, after I touched it," cried Ferdinand; **but 
you took in a bucket of water, and I suppose your 
m'sieu' is sitting on a piece of the river. Is it not?" 

This seemed to us all a very merry jest. It is 
one of the charms of life in the woods that it brings 
back ^ the high spirits of boyhood and renews the 
youth of the world. Plain fun, like plain food, tastes 
good out-of-doors. 

The first little rapid was only the beginning. Half 
a mile below we could see the river disappear be- 
tween two points of rock. There was a roar of con- 
flict, and a golden mist hanging in the air, like the 
smoke of battle. All along the place where the river 
sank from sight, dazzling heads of foam were flashing 
up and falling back, as if a horde of water-sprites were 
vainly trying to fight their way up to the lake. It 
was the top of a wild succession of falls and pools 
where no boat could live for a moment. We ran 
down toward it as far as the water served, and then 
turned off among the rocks on the left hand, to take 
the portage. 




Henry van Dyke and Grandson. 
Seal Harbor, Maine, 191 1. 



Camping Out 21 



III 



THE TENT 



Men may say what they will in praise of their 
houses, but, for our part, we are agreed that there 
is nothing to be compared with a tent. It is the 
most venerable and aristocratic form of human habi- 
tation. Abraham and Sarah lived in it, and shared 
its hospitality with angels. It is exempt from the 
base tyranny of the plumber, the paper-hanger, and 
the gas-man. It is not immovably bound to one dull 
spot of earth by the chains of a cellar and a system 
of water-pipes. It has a noble freedom of locomo- 
tion. It follows the wishes of its inhabitants, and 
goes with them, a travelling home, as the spirit moves 
them to explore the wilderness. At their pleasure, 
new beds of wild flowers surround it, new plantations 
of trees overshadow it, and new avenues of shining 
water lead to its ever-open door. What the tent 
lacks in luxury it makes up in liberty: or rather let 
us say that liberty itself is the greatest luxury. 

Another thing is worth remembering — a family 
which lives in a tent never can have a skeleton in 
the closet. 

But it must not be supposed that every spot in 
the woods is suitable for a camp, or that a good 
tenting-ground can be chosen without knowledge 
and forethought. One of the requisites, indeed, is 
to be found everywhere in the St. John region; for 
all the lakes and rivers are full of clear, cool water, 
and the traveller does not need to search for a spring. 
But it is always necessary to look carefully for a 
bit of smooth ground on the shore, far enough above 



22 Out of Doors 

the water to be dry, and slightly sloping, so that the 
head of the bed may be higher than the foot. Above 
all, it must be free from big stones and serpentine 
roots of trees. A root that looks no bigger than an 
inch-worm in the daytime assumes the proportions 
of a boa-constrictor at midnight — when you find it 
under your hip-bone. There should also be plenty 
of evergreens near at hand for the beds. Spruce will 
answer at a pinch ; it has an aromatic smell ; but it is 
too stiff and humpy. Hemlock is smoother and more 
flexible; but the spring soon wears out of it. The 
balsam-fir, with its elastic branches and thick flat 
needles, is the best of all. A bed of these boughs a 
foot deep is softer than a mattress and as fragrant 
as a thousand Christmas-trees. Two things more 
are needed for the ideal camp-ground — an open situa- 
tion, where the breeze will drive away the flies and 
mosquitoes, and an abundance of dry firewood within 
easy reach. Yes, and a third thing must not be 
forgotten, for, says my lady Greygown: 

**I shouldn^t feel at home in camp unless I could 
sit in the door of the tent and look out across flowing 
water." 

All these conditions are met in our favorite camp- 
ing place below the first fall in the Grande Decharge. 
A rocky point juts out into the river and makes a 
fine landing for the canoes. There is a dismantled 
fishing-cabin a few rods back in the woods, from 
which we can borrow boards for a table and chairs. 
A group of cedars on the lower edge of the point opens 
just wide enough to receive and shelter our tent. 
At a good distance beyond ours, the guides' tent is 
pitched; and the big camp-fire burns between the 



Camping Out 23 

two dwellings. A pair of white-birches lift their 
leafy crowns far above us, and after them we name 
the place. 

What an admirable, lovable, and comfortable tree 
is the white-birch, the silver queen of the forest, 
beautiful to look upon and full of various uses. Its 
wood is strong to make paddles and axe handles, 
and glorious to burn, blazing up at first with a flash- 
ing flame, and then holding the fire in its glowing 
heart all through the night. Its bark is the most 
serviceable of all the products of the wilderness. In 
Russia, they say, it is used in tanning, and gives its 
subtle, sacerdotal fragrance to Russia leather. But 
here, in the woods, it serves more primitive ends. It 
can be peeled off in a huge roll from some giant tree 
and fashioned into a swift canoe to carry man over 
the waters. It can be cut into square sheets to roof 
his shanty in the forest. It is the paper on which 
he writes his woodland despatches, and the flexible 
material which he bends into drinking-cups of silver 
lined with gold. A thin strip of it wrapped around 
the end of a candle and fastened in a cleft stick makes 
a practicable chandelier. A basket for berries, a horn 
to call the lovelorn moose through the autumnal 
woods, a canvas on which to draw the outline of 
great and memorable fish — all these and many other 
indispensable luxuries are stored up for the skilful 
woodsman in the birch bark. 

Only do not rob or mar the tree unless you really 
need what it has to give you. Let it stand and grow 
in virgin majesty, ungirdled and unscarred, while the 
trunk becomes a firm pillar of the forest temple, and 
the branches spread abroad a refuge of bright green 



24 Out of Doors 

leaves for the birds of the air. Nature never made a 
more excellent piece of handiwork. 



IV 



A LITTLE FISHING 

The chief occupation of our idle days was fishing. 
Above the camp spread a noble pool more than two 
miles in circumference, and diversified with smooth 
bays and whirling eddies, sand beaches and rocky 
islands. The river poured into it at the head, foam- 
ing and raging, and swept out of it just in front of 
our camp in a merry, musical rapid. It was full of 
fish of various kinds — long-nosed pickerel, wall-eyed 
pike, and stupid chub. But the prince of the pool 
was the fighting ouananiche,* the land-locked salmon 
of St. John. 

Every morning and evening, Greygown and I 
would go out for ouananiche, and sometimes we 
caught plenty and sometimes few, but we never came 
back without a good catch of happiness. There were 
certain places where the fish liked to stay. For ex- 
ample, we always looked for one at the lower corner 
of a big rock, very close to it, where he could poise 
himself easily on the edge of the strong downward 
stream. Another likely place was a straight run of 
water, swift, but not too swift, with a sunken stone 
in the middle. The ouananiche does not like crooked, 
twisting water. An even current is far more com- 
fortable, for then he discovers just how much effort 
is needed to balance against it, and keeps up the 

* Pronounce " wan-an-i'sh." 



Camping Out 25 

movement mechanically, as if he were half asleep. 
But his favorite place is under one of the floating 
islands of thick foam that gather in the corners below 
the falls. The matted flakes give a grateful shelter 
from the sun, I fancy, and almost all game-fish love 
to lie in the shade; but the chief reason why the 
ouananiche haunt the drifting white mass is because 
it is full of flies and gnats, beaten down by the spray 
of the cataract, and sprinkled all through the foam 
like plums in a cake. To this natural confection the 
little salmon, lurking in his corner, plays the part of 
Jack Horner all day long, and never wearies. 

*'See that foam down below there!" said Ferdi- 
nand, as we scrambled over the huge rocks at the 
foot of the falls; ''there ought to be salmon there.'* 
Yes, there were the sharp noses picking out the un- 
fortunate insects, and the broad tails waving lazily 
through the foam as the fish turned in the water. At 
this season of the year, when summer is nearly ended, 
and every ouananiche in the river has tasted feathers 
and seen a hook, it is useless to attempt to delude 
them with the large gaudy flies which the fishing- 
tackle-maker recommends. There are only two suc- 
cessful methods of angling now. The first of these I 
tried, and by casting delicately with a tiny brown 
trout-fly tied on a gossamer strand of gut, captured 
a pair of fish weighing about three pounds each. 
They fought against the spring of the four-ounce rod 
for nearly half an hour before Ferdinand could slip 
the net around them. But there was another and a 
broader tail still waving disdainfully on the outer 
edge of the foam. "And now," said the gallant Fer- 
dinand, '*the turn is to madame, that she should 



26 Out of Doors 

prove her fortune — attend but a moment, madame, 
while I seek the bait/' 

This was the second method: a grasshopper was 
attached to the hook, and casting the hne well out 
across the pool, Ferdinand put the rod into Grey- 
gown's hands. She stood poised upon a pinnacle of 
rock, like patience on a monument, waiting for a bite. 
It came. There was a slow, gentle pull at the line, 
answered by a quick jerk of the rod, and a noble fish 
flashed into the air. Four pounds and a half at 
least ! He leaped again and again, shaking the drops 
from his silvery sides. He rushed up the rapids as if 
he had determined to return to the lake, and down 
again as if he had changed his plans and determined 
to go to the Saguenay. He sulked in the deep water 
and rubbed his nose against the rocks. He did his 
best to treat that treacherous grasshopper as the 
whale served Jonah. But Greygown, through all her 
little screams and shouts of excitement, was steady 
and sage. She never gave the fish an inch of slack 
line; and at last he lay glittering on the rocks, with 
the black St. Andrew's crosses clearly marked on his 
plump sides, and the iridescent spots gleaming on 
his small, shapely head. ''A beauty!" cried Ferdi- 
nand, as he held up the fish in triumph, **and it is 
madame who has the good fortune. She under- 
stands well to take the large fish — is it not?" Grey- 
gown stepped demurely down from her pinnacle, and 
as we drifted down the pool in the canoe, under the 
mellow evening sky, her conversation betrayed not 
a trace of the pride that a victorious fisherman would 
have shown. On the contrary, she insisted that 
angling was an affair of chance — which was consoling. 



Camping Out 27 

though I knew it was not altogether true — and that 
the smaller fish were just as pleasant to catch and 
better to eat, after all. 



MORNING AND EVENING 

Our tent is on the border of a coppice of young 
trees. It is pleasant to be awakene^d by a convoca- 
tion of birds at sunrise, and to watch the shadows of 
the leaves dance out upon our translucent roof of 
canvas. 

All the birds in the bush are early, but there are 
so many of them that it is difficult to believe that 
every one can be rewarded with a worm. Here in 
Canada those little people of the air who appear as 
transient guests of spring and autumn in the Middle 
States, are in their summer home and breeding-place. 
Warblers, named for the magnolia and the myrtle, 
chestnut-sided, bay-breasted, blue-backed and black- 
throated, flutter and creep along the branches with 
simple lisping music. Kinglets, ruby-crowned and 
golden-crowned, tiny, brilliant sparks of life, twitter 
among the trees, breaking occasionally into clearer, 
sweeter songs. Companies of redpoles and cross- 
bills pass chirping through the thickets, busily seek- 
ing their food. The fearless, familiar chickadee re- 
peats his name merrily, while he leads his family to 
explore every nook and cranny of the wood. Cedar 
wax-wings, sociable wanderers, arrive in numerous 
flocks. The Canadians call them *'recollets,'' because 
they wear a brown crest of the same color as the hoods 
of the monks who came with the first settlers to New 



28 Out of Doors 

France. They are a songless tribe, although their 
quick, reiterated call as they take to flight has given 
them the name of chatterers. The beautiful tree- 
sparrows and the pine-siskins are more melodious, 
and the slate-colored j uncos, flitting about the camp, 
are as garrulous as chippy-birds. All these varied 
notes come and go through the tangle of morning 
dreams. And now the noisy blue- jay is calling 
^^ Thief — thief — thief!'' in the distance, and a pair of 
great pileated woodpeckers with crimson crests are 
laughing loudly in the swamp over some family joke. 
But listen ! what is that harsh creaking note ? It is 
the cry of the northern shrike, of whom tradition says 
that he catches little birds and fmpales them on 
sharp thorns. At the sound of his voice the concert 
closes suddenly and the singers vanish into thin air. 

When the long, happy day is over, just before 
sundown we go for a little walk along the portage 
and up the hill behind the camp. There are blue- 
berries growing abundantly among the rocks — huge 
clusters of them, bloomy and luscious as the grapes 
of Eshcol. The blueberry is Nature's compensation 
for the ruin of forest fires. It grows best where the 
woods have been burned away and the soil is too 
poor to raise another crop of trees. 

And here is a bed of moss beside a dashing rivu- 
let, inviting us to rest and be thankful. Hark! 
There is a white-throated sparrow, on a little tree 
across the river, whistling his sunset song 

**In linked sweetness long drawn out." 

Down in Maine they call him the Peabody-bird, 
because his notes sound to them like Old md?i — 



Camping Out 29 

Peabody, peabody, peabody. In New Brunswick the 
Scotch settlers say that he sings Lost — lost — Kennedy, 
kennedy, kennedy. But here in his northern home I 
think we can understand him better. He is singing 
again and again, with a cadence that never wearies, 
^^ Sweet — sweet — Canada, Canada, Canada!'' The Ca- 
nadians, when they came across the sea, remember- 
ing the nightingale of southern France, baptized this 
little gray minstrel with his name, and the country 
ballads are full of his praise. Every land has its 
nightingale, if we only have the heart to hear him. 
How distinct his voice is — how personal, how con- 
fidential, as if he had a m^essage for us ! 

There is a breath of fragrance on the cool shady 
air beside our little stream, that seems familiar. It 
is the first week of September. Can it be that the 
twin-flower of June is blooming again ? Yes, here is 
the threadlike stem lifting its two frail pink bells 
above the bed of shining leaves. How dear an early 
flower seems when it comes back again and unfolds 
its beauty in a St. Martin's summer ! How delicate 
and suggestive is the faint, magical odor ! It is like 
a renewal of the dreams of youth. 



THE OPEN FIRE 



LIGHTING UP 

Man is the animal that has made friends with the 
fire. 

All the other creatures, in their natural state, are 
afraid of it. They look upon it with wonder and 
dismay. It fascinates them, sometimes, with its 
glittering eyes in the night. The squirrels and the 
hares come pattering softly toward it through the 
underbrush around the new camp. The deer stands 
staring into the blaze of the jack while the hunter's 
canoe creeps through the lily-pads. But the charm 
that masters them is one of dread, not of love. It is 
the witchcraft of the serpent's lambent look. When 
they know what it means, when the heat of the fire 
touches them, or even when its smell comes clearly 
to their most delicate sense, they recognize it as their 
enemy, the Wild Huntsman whose red, hounds can 
follow, follow for days without wearying, growing 
stronger and more furious with every turn of the 
chase. Let but a trail of smoke drift down the wind 
across the forest, and all the game for miles and miles 
will catch the signal for fear and flight. 

Many of the animals have learned how to make 
houses for themselves. The cabane of the beaver is 
a wonder of neatness and comfort, much preferable 
to the wigwam of his Indian hunter. The muskrat 
knows how thick and high to build the dome of his 

30 



The Open Fire 31 

water-side cottage, in order to protect himself against 
the frost of the coming winter and the floods of the 
following spring. The woodchuck's house has two 
or three doors; and the squirrel's dwelling is pro- 
vided with a good bed and a convenient storehouse 
for nuts and acorns. The sportive otters have a 
toboggan slide in front of their residence; and the 
moose in winter make a ''yard/* where they can take 
exercise comfortably and find shelter for sleep. But 
there is one thing lacking in all these various dwellings 
— a fireplace. 

Man is the only creature that dares to light a fire 
and to live with it. The reason ? Because he alone 
has learned how to put it out. 

It is true that two of his humbler friends have been 
converted to fire-worship. The dog and the cat, 
being half-humanized, have begun to love the fire. 
I suppose that a cat seldom comes so near to feeling 
a true sense of affection as when she has finished her 
saucer of bread and milk, and stretched herself lux- 
uriously underneath the kitchen stove, while her 
faithful mistress washes up the dishes. As for a dog, 
I am sure that his admiring love for his master is 
never greater than when they come in together from 
the hunt, wet and tired, and the man gathers a pile 
of wood in front of the tent, touches it with a tiny 
magic wand, and suddenly the clear, consoling flame 
springs up, saying cheerfully, ''Here we are, at home 
in the forest; come into the warmth; rest, and eat» 
and sleep.'' When the weary, shivering dog sees this 
miracle, he knows that his master is a great man and 
a lord of things. 

After all, that is the only real open fire. Wood is 



32 Out of Doors 

the fuel for it. Out-of-doors is the place for it. A 
furnace is an underground prison for a toihng slave. 
A stove is a cage for a tame bird. Even a broad 
hearthstone and a pair of glittering andirons — the 
best ornament of a room — must be accepted as an 
imitation of the real thing. The veritable open fire 
is built in the open, with the whole earth for a fire- 
place and the sky for a chimney. 

To start a fire in the open is by no means as easy 
as it looks. It is one of those simple tricks that 
everyone thinks he can perform until he tries it. If, 
perhaps, you have to do it in the rain, with a single 
match, it requires no little art and skill. 

There is plenty of wood everywhere, but not a bit 
to burn. The fallen trees are water-logged. The 
dead leaves are as damp as grief. The charred sticks 
that you find in an old fireplace are absolutely in- 
combustible. Do not trust the handful of withered 
twigs and branches that you gather from the spruce- 
trees. They seem dry, but they are little better for 
your purpose than so much asbestos. You make a 
pile of them in some apparently suitable hollow, and 
lay a few larger sticks on top. Then you hastily 
scratch your solitary match on the seat of your trou- 
sers and thrust it into the pile of twigs. What hap- 
pens? The wind whirls around in your stupid little 
hollow, and the blue flame of the sulphur spurts and 
sputters for an instant, and then goes out. Or per- 
haps there is a moment of stillness; the match flares 
up bravely; the nearest twigs catch fire, crackling 
and sparkling; you hurriedly lay on more sticks; but 
the fire deliberately dodges them, creeps to the corner 
of the pile where the twigs are fewest and dampest. 




^'The little friendship-fire." 



The Open Fire 33 

snaps feebly a few times, and expires in smoke. 
Now where are you? How far is it to the nearest 
match ? 

If you are wise, you will always build your fire be- 
fore you light it. Time is never saved by doing a 
thing badly. 

II 

THE CAMP-FIRE 

In the making of fires there is as much difference 
as in the building of houses. Everything depends 
upon the purpose that you have in view. There is 
the camp-fire, and the cooking-fire, and the smudge- 
fire, and the little friendship-fire — not to speak of 
other minor varieties. Each of these has its own 
proper style of architecture, and to mix them is false 
art and poor economy. 

The object of the camp-fire is to give heat, and in- 
cidentally light, to your tent or shanty. You can 
hardly build this kind of a fire unless you have a 
good axe and know how to chop. For the first thing 
that you need is a solid back-log, the thicker the 
better, to hold the heat and reflect it into the tent. 
This log must not be too dry, or it will burn out 
quickly. Neither must it be too damp, else it will 
smoulder and discourage the fire. The best wood 
for it is the body of a yellow birch, and, next to that, 
a green balsam. It should be five or six feet long, 
and at least two and a half feet in diameter. If you 
cannot find a tree thick enough, cut two or three 
lengths of a smaller one; lay the thickest log on the 
ground first, about ten or twelve feet in front of the 



34 Out of Doors 

tent; drive two strong stakes behind it, slanting a 
little backward; and lay the other logs on top of the 
first, resting against the stakes. 

Now you are ready for the hand-chunks, or and- 
irons. These are shorter sticks of wood, eight or 
ten inches thick, laid at right angles to the back-log, 
four or five feet apart. Across these you are to build 
up the firewood proper. 

Use a dry spruce-tree, not one that has fallen, but 
one that is dead and still standing, if you want a 
lively, snapping fire. Use a hard maple or a hickory 
if you want a fire that will burn steadily and make 
few sparks. But if you like a fire to blaze up at first 
with a splendid flame, and then burn on with an en- 
during heat far into the night, a young white birch 
with the bark on is the tree to choose. Six or eight 
round sticks of this laid across the hand-chunks, with 
perhaps a few quarterings of a larger tree, will make 
a glorious fire. 

But before you put these on, you must be ready 
to light up. A few splinters of dry spruce or pine 
or balsam, stood endwise against the back-log, or, 
better still, piled up in a pyramid between the hand- 
chunks; a few strips of birch bark, and one good 
match — these are all that you want. But be sure 
that your match is a good one. You would better 
see to this before you go into the brush. Your com- 
fort, even your life, may depend on it. 

In the woods, the old-fashioned brimstone match 
of our grandfathers — the match with a brown head 
and a stout stick and a dreadful smell — is the best. 
But if you have only one, you would better not trust 
even that to light your fire directly. Use it first to 



The Open Fire 35 

touch off a roll of birch bark which you hold in your 
hand. Then, when the bark is well alight, crinkling 
and curling, push it under the heap of kindlings, give 
the flame time to take a good hold, and lay your wood 
over it, a stick at a time, until the whole pile is blaz- 
ing. Now your fire is started. Your friendly little 
gnome with the red hair is ready to serve you through 
the night. 

He will dry your clothes if you are wet. He will 
cheer you up if you are despondent. He will diffuse 
an air of sociability through the camp, and draw the 
men together in a half circle for story-telling and 
jokes and singing. He will hold a flambeau for you 
while you spread your blankets on the boughs and 
dress for bed. He will keep you warm while you 
sleep — at least till about three o^clock in the morn- 
ing, when you dream that you are out sleighing in 
your pajamas, and wake up with a shiver. 

HI 

THE LITTLE FRIENDSHIP-FIRE 

There are times and seasons when the angler has 
no need of the camp-fire, or the smudge-fire, or the 
cooking-fire. He sleeps in a house. His breakfast 
and dinner are cooked for him in a kitchen. He is 
in no great danger from black-flies or mosquitoes. 
All he needs now, as he sets out to spend a day on 
the Neversink, or the Willowemoc, or the Shepaug, 
or the Swiftwater, is a good lunch in his pocket, and 
a little friendship-fire to burn pleasantly beside him 
while he eats his frugal fare and prolongs his noon- 
day rest. 



36 Out of Doors 

This form of fire does less work than any other in 
the world. Yet it is far from being useless; and I, 
for one, should be sorry to live without it. Its only 
use is to make a visible centre of interest where there 
are two or three anglers eating their lunch together, 
or to supply a kind of companionship to a lone fisher- 
man. It is kindled and burns for no other purpose 
than to give you the sense of being at home and at 
ease. Why the fire should do this, I cannot tell, but 
it does. 

You may build your friendship-fire in almost any 
way that pleases you; but this is the way in which 
you shall build it best. You have no axe, of course, 
so you must look about for the driest sticks that you 
can find. Do not seek them close beside the stream, 
for there they are likely to be water-soaked; but go 
back into the woods a bit and gather a good armful 
of fuel. Then break it, if you can, into lengths of 
about two feet, and construct your fire in the follow- 
ing fashion. 

Lay two sticks parallel, and put between them a 
pile of dried grass, dead leaves, small twigs, and the 
paper in which your lunch was wrapped. Then lay 
two other sticks crosswise on top of your first pair. 
Strike your match and touch your kindlings. As the 
fire catches, lay on other pairs of sticks, each pair 
crosswise to the pair that is below it, until you have 
a pyramid of flame. This is ''a Micmac fire'' such 
as the Indians make in the woods. 

Now you can pull off your wading-boots and warm 
your feet at the blaze. You can toast your bread if 
you Hke. You can even make shift to broil one of 
your trout, fastened on the end of a birch twig if you 



The Open Fire 37 

have a fancy that way. When your hunger is satis- 
fied, you shake out the crumbs for the birds and the 
squirrels, settle down for an hour's reading if you 
have a book in your pocket, or for a good talk if you 
have a comrade with you. 

The stream of time flows swift and smooth, by such 
a fire as this. The moments slip past unheeded; the 
sun sinks down his western arch; the shadows begin 
to fall across the brook; it is time to move on for the 
afternoon fishing. The fire has almost burned out. 
But do not trust it too much. Throw some sand 
over it, or bring a hatful of water from the brook to 
pour on it, until you are sure that the last glowing 
ember is extinguished, and nothing but the black 
coals and the charred ends of the sticks are left. 

Even the little friendship-fire must keep the law 
of the bush. All lights out when their purpose is 
fulfilled ! 



THE BIG SALMON 

Dinner at nine o'clock, before the big open hearth, 
with a friendly fire. Much chaffing and pleasant 
talk about the arrangements for to-morrow. A man 
to be sent off at daybreak to have two buckboards 
ready at the landing at seven for the drive to Ta- 
dousac. Then a reprehensible quantity of tobacco 
smoked in the book- room, and the tale of the season's 
angling told from the beginning with many embel- 
lishments and divagations. There were stories of 
good luck and bad; vituperations of the lumbermen 
for leaving tree-tops and broken branches in the 
stream to get caught among the rocks and ruin the 
fishing; accounts of the immense number of salmon 
that had been seen leaping in the estuary, waiting 
to come up the river. The interest centred in the 
story of a huge fish that had taken up his transient 
abode in the pool called La Fourche, The Colonel 
had pricked and lost the monster two days ago, and 
had seen him jump twice yesterday. The Colonel 
was greatly excited about it, and vowed it was the 
largest salmon seen in the river for ten years — '*a 
whale, I tell you, a regular marsouin !'' he cried, 
waving his hands in the air. The Doctor was pro- 
vokingly sceptical about the size of the fish. But 
both agreed that there was one thing that must be 
done. Chichester must try a few casts in La Fourche 
early in the morning. 

'*Yes," said the Doctor, puffing slowly at his pipe, 

38 



The Big Salmon 39 

'Aplenty of time between daylight and breakfast — 
good hour for a shy old fish — we give up our rights 
to you — the pool is yours — see what you can do with 
it — may be your last chance to try your luck — '' for 
somehow a rumor in regard to Miss Asham's views 
on angling had leaked out, and Chichester's friends 
were inclined to make merry about it. 

He rose to the fly decidedly. '' I don't know about 
this being my last chance/' said he, **but Til take it, 
anyway. John, give me a call at half-past three 
sharp, and tell the two Louis to be ready with the 
canoe and the rod and the big landing-net." 

The little wreaths of gray mist were curling up 
from the river, and the fleecy western clouds were 
tinged with wild rose behind the wooded hills, as 
Chichester stepped out on the slippery rocks at the 
head of the pool, loosened his line, gave a couple of 
pulls to his reel to see that the click was all right, 
waved his slender rod in the air, and sent his fly out 
across the swift current. Once it swung around, 
dancing over the water, without result. The second 
cast carried it out a few feet further, and it curved 
through a wider arc, but still without result. The 
third cast sent it a little further still, past the edge of 
a big sunken rock in the current. There was a flash 
of silver in the amber water, a great splash on the 
surface, a broad tail waved in the air and vanished — 
an immense salmon had risen and missed the fly. 

Chichester reeled in his line and sat down. His 
pulses were hammering, and his chin was set at the 
angle of solid determination. "The Colonel was 
right,'* he said, '* that's an enormous fish, and he's 
mine .^" 



40 Out of Doors 

He waited the full five minutes, according to an- 
cient rule,, before making the next cast. There was 
a tiny wren singing among the Balm-o'-Gilead trees 
on the opposite shore, with a voice that rose silverly 
above the noise of the rapids. ''Cheer up, cheer up,'' 
it seemed to say, ''what's the matter with you? 
Don't hurry, don't worry, try it again — again — 
again !" 

But the next cast was made in vain. There was 
no response. Chichester changed his fly. The result 
was the same. He tried three different flies in suc- 
cession without effect. Then he gave the top of the 
pool a rest, and fished down through the smooth 
water at the lower end, hooking and losing a small 
fish. Then he came back to the big salmon again, 
and fished a small Durham Ranger over him without 
success. A number four Critchley's Fancy produced 
no better result. A tiny double Silver Gray brought 
no response. Then he looked through his fly-box in 
despair, and picked out an old three-nought Prince of 
Orange — a huge, gaudy affair with battered feathers, 
which he had used two years before in flood-water 
on the Restigouche. At least it would astonish the 
salmon, for it looked like a last season's picture-hat, 
very much the worse for wear. It lit on the ripples 
with a splash, and floated down stream in a dishev- 
elled state till it reached the edge of the sunken rock. 
Bang ! The salmon rose to that incredible fly with 
a rush, and went tearing across the pool. 

The reel shrieked wildly as the line ran out. The 
rod quivered and bent almost double. Chichester 
had the butt pressed against his belt, the tip well up 
in the air, the reel-handle free from any possible 



The Big Salmon 41 

touch of coat-flap or sleeve. To check that fierce 
rush by a hundredth part of a second meant the snap- 
ping of the dehcate casting-Hne, or the smashing of 
the pHant rod-tip. He knew, as the salmon leaped 
clear of the water, once, twice, three times, that he 
was in for the fight of his life; and he dropped the 
point of the rod quickly at each leap to yield to the 
sudden strain. 

The play, at first, was fast and furious. The 
salmon started up the stream, breasting the rapids 
at a lively rate, and taking out line as rapidly as the 
reel could run. Chichester followed along the open 
shore, holding his rod high with both hands, stum- 
bling over the big rocks, wading knee-deep across a 
side-channel of the river, but keeping his feet some- 
how, until the fish paused in the lower part of the 
pool called La Batture. Here there was a chance to 
reel in line, and the men poled the canoe up from 
below, to be ready for the next turn in the contest. 

The salmon was now sulking at the bottom, with 
his head down, balanced against the current, and 
boring steadily. He kept this up for a quarter of an 
hour, then made a rush up the pool, and a sidelong 
skittering leap on the surface. Coming back with a 
sudden turn, he threw a somersault in the air, close 
to the opposite shore, sank to the bottom and began 
jigging. Jig, jig, jig, from side to side, with short, 
heavy jerks, he worked his way back an3 forth twice 
the length of the pool. Chichester knew it was dan- 
gerous. Any one of these sharp blows might snap 
the leader or the hook. But he couldn't stop it. 
There was nothing to do but wait, with tense nerves, 
until the salmon got through jigging. 



42 Out of Doors 

The change came suddenly. A notion to go down 
stream struck the salmon like a flash of lightning; 
without a moment's warning he took the line over 
his shoulder and darted into the rapids. ''// va des- 
cendre ! VitCy vite ! Le canot ! Au large ! '' shouted 
the two Louis; but Chichester had already stepped 
into his place in the middle of the canoe, and there 
were still forty yards of white line left on the reel, 
when the narrow boat dashed away in pursuit of the 
fish, impelled by flashing paddles and flinging the 
spray to right and left. There were many large 
rocks half hidden in the wild white water through 
which they were plunging, and with a long line there 
was danger that the fish would take a turn around 
one of them and break away. It was necessary to 
go faster than he went, in order to retrieve as much 
line as possible. But paddle as fast as they could 
the fish kept ahead. He was not towing the boat, 
of course; for only an ignoramus imagines that a 
salmon can *^tow" a boat, when the casting-line that 
holds him is a single strand of gut that will break 
under a strain of ten pounds. He was running away, 
and the canoe was chasing him through the roaring 
torrent. But he held his lead, and there were still 
eighty or ninety yards of line out when he rushed 
down the last plunge into La Fourche. 

The situation was this: The river here is shaped 
like a big Y. The salmon went down the inside 
edge of the left-hand fork. The canoe followed him 
down the outside edge of the same fork. When he 
came to the junction it was natural to suppose that 
he would follow the current down the main stem of 
the Y. But instead of that, when the canoe dropped 



The Big Salmon 43 

into the comparative stillness of the pool, the line 
was stretched, taut and quivering, across the foot of 
the left-hand fork and straight up into the current 
of the right-hand fork. ''He's gone up the other 
branch," shouted Chichester, above the roar of the 
stream, "we must follow him! Push across the 
rapids! Push lively!'' So the men seized their set- 
ting-poles and shoved as fast as they could across 
the foot of the rapids, while the rushing torrent 
threatened at every moment to come in over the 
side and swamp the canoe. There was a tugging and 
a trembling on the line, and it led, apparently, up the 
North-East Branch, past Brackett's Camp. But 
when the canoe reached the middle of the rapids 
P'tit Louis uttered an exclamation, leaned over the 
bow, and pulled up the end of a tree-top, the butt of 
which was firmly wedged among the rocks. Around 
the slender branches, waving and quivering in the 
current with life-like motion, the line was looped. 
The lower part of it trailed away loosely down the 
stream into the pool. 

Chichester took in the situation in a flash of grieved 
insight. ''Well," he said, "that is positively the 
worst ! Good-by, Mr. Salmon. Louis, pull out that- 
er, er — that branch !" and he began slowly to reel in 
the line. But old Louis, in the stern of the canoe, 
had taken hold of the slack and was pulling it in hand 
over hand. In a second he shouted '' Arretez ! Arre- 
tez ! M'sieUy il n'est pas parti, il est la !'' 

It was a most extraordinary aflfair. The spring of 
the flexible branch had been enough to keep the line 
from breaking. The salmon, resting in the compara- 
tively still water of the pool, had remained at the 



44 Out of Doors 

end of the slack, and the hook, by some fortunate 
chance, held firm. It took but a moment to get the 
line taut and the point of the rod up again. And 
then the battle began anew. The salmon was re- 
freshed by his fifteen minutes between the halves of 
the game. No centre in a rush-line ever played 
harder or faster. 

He exhausted the possibilities of attack and de- 
fence in La Fourche, and then started down the rapids 
again. In the little pot-hole in mid-river, called Pool 
a Michel, he halted; but it was only for a minute. 
Soon he was flying down the swift water, the canoe 
after him, toward the fierce, foaming channel which 
runs between the island and the eastern bank oppo- 
site the club-house. Chichester could see the Colonel 
and the Doctor at the landing, waving and beckon- 
ing to him, as he darted along with the current. In- 
tent upon carrying his fight through to a finish, he 
gave only a passing glance to what he thought was 
their friendly gesture of encouragement, took his 
right hand from the reel for a second to wave a 
greeting, and passed on, with determination written 
in every line of his chin, following the fish toward 
the sea. 

Through the clear shallows of La Pinettey and the 
rapids below; through the curling depths of Pool a 
Pierre, and the rapids below; through the long, curv- 
ing reach of UHirondelle, and the mad rapids below; 
so the battle went, and it was fight, fight, fight, and 
never the word ^^give up!'' At last they came to 
the head of tide-water and the lake-like pool beside 
the old quay. Here the methods of the fish changed. 
There was no more leaping in the air; no more 



The Big Salmon 45 

violent jigging; no more swift rushing up or down 
stream; but instead, there was just an obstinate ad- 
herence to the deepest water in the pool, a slow and 
steady circling round and round in some invisible 
eddy below the surface. From this he could only be 
moved by pressure. Now was the time to test the 
strength of the rod and line. The fish was lifted a 
few feet by main force, and the line reeled in while 
the rod was lowered again. Then there was another 
lift, and another reeling in; and so the process was 
repeated until he was brought close to the shore in 
comparatively shallow water. Even yet he did not 
turn over on his back, or show the white fin; but it 
was evident that he was through fighting. 

Chichester and P'tit Louis stepped out on the 
shore, old Louis holding the canoe. P'tit Louis made 
his way carefully to a point of rock, with the wide- 
mouthed, long-handled net, and dipped it quietly 
down into the water, two or three feet deep. The 
fish was guided gently in toward the shore, and 
allowed to drop back with the smooth current until 
the net was around him. Then it was swiftly lifted; 
there was the gleam of an immense mass of silver in 
its meshes, an instant of furious struggle, the quick 
stroke of a short, heavy baton; and the great salmon 
was landed and despatched. 

The hook was well set in the outside of his jaw, 
just underneath his chin; no wonder he played so 
long, with his mouth shut ! Bring the spring-balance 
and test his weight. Forty-eight pounds, full mea- 
sure, the record salmon of the river— a deep thickset 
fish, whose gleaming silver sides and sharp teeth 
proved him fresh-run from the sea ! 



SILVERHORNS 

Angus McLeod was a grizzle-bearded Scotchman 
who had run a locomotive on the Intercolonial ever 
since the road was cut through the woods from New 
Brunswick to Quebec. Everyone who travelled often 
on that line knew him, and all who knew him well 
enough to get below his rough crust, liked him for 
his big heart. 

''Hallo, McLeod," said Hemenway, as he came up 
through the darkness, ''is that you?'' 

"It's nane else," answered the engineer as he 
stepped down from his cab and shook hands warmly. 
"Hoo are ye, Dud, an' whaur hae ye been murderin' 
the innocent beasties noo? Hae ye killt yer moose 
yet? Ye've been chasin' him these mony years." 

"Not much murdering," replied Hemenway. "I 
had a queer trip this time — away up the Nepissiguit, 
with old McDonald. You know him, don't you?" 

"Fine do I ken Rob McDonald, an' a guid mon 
he is. Hoo was it that ye couldna slaughter stacks 
o' moose wi' him to help ye? Did ye see nane at 
ail?" 

"Plenty, and one with the biggest horns in the 
world ! But that's a long story, and there's no time 
to tell it now." 

"Time to burrrn, Dud, nae fear o' it! 'Twill be 
an hour afore the line's clear to Charlo an' they lat 
us oot o' this. Come awa' up into the cab, mon, 
an' tell us yer tale. 'Tis couthy an' warm in the 
cab, an' I'm wiUin' to leesten to yer bluidy ad- 
vaintures." 

46 



Silverhorns 47 

So the two men clambered up into the engineer's 
seat. Hemenway gave McLeod his longest and 
strongest cigar, and filled his own briarwood pipe. 
The rain was now pattering gently on the roof of the 
cab. The engine hissed and sizzled patiently in the 
darkness. The fragrant smoke curled steadily from 
the glowing tip of the cigar; but the pipe went out 
half a dozen times while Hemenway was telling the 
story of Silverhorns. 

''We went up the river to the big rock, just below 
Indian Falls. There we made our main camp, in- 
tending to hunt on Forty-two Mile Brook. There's 
quite a snarl of ponds and bogs at the head of it, and 
some burned hills over to the west, and it's very good 
rnoose country. 

''But some other party had been there before us, 
and we saw nothing on the ponds, except two cow 
moose and a calf. Coming out the next morning we 
got a fine deer on the old wood road — a beautiful 
head. But I have plenty of deer-heads already." 

"Bonny creature!" said McLeod. "An' what did 
ye do wi' it, when ye had murdered it?" 

"Ate it, of course. I gave the head to Billy 
Boucher, the cook. He said he could get ten dollars 
for it. The next evening we went to one of the 
ponds again, and Injun Pete tried to 'call' a moose 
for me. But it was no good. McDonald was dis- 
gusted with Pete's calling; said it sounded like the 
bray of a wild ass of the wilderness. So the next 
day we gave up calling and travelled the woods over 
toward the burned hills. 

"In the afternoon McDonald found an enormous 
moose-track; he thought it looked like a bull's track, 



48 Out of Doors 

though he wasn't quite positive. But then, you 
know, a Scotchman never Hkes to commit himself, 
except about theology or politics." 

''Humph!'* grunted McLeod in the. darkness, 
showing that the stroke had counted. 

''Well, we went on, following that track through 
the woods, for an hour or two. It was a terrible 
country, I tell you: tamarack swamps, and spruce 
thickets, and windfalls, and all kinds of misery. 
Presently we came out on a bare rock on the burned 
hillside, and there, across a ravine, we could see the 
animal lying down, just below the trunk of a big 
dead spruce that had fallen. The beast's head and 
neck were hidden by some bushes, but the fore- 
shoulder and side were in clear view, about two hun- 
dred and fifty yards away. McDonald seemed to be 
inclined to think that it was a bull and that I ought 
to shoot. So I shot, and knocked splinters out of 
the spruce log. We could see them fly. The animal 
got up quickly, and looked at us for a moment, shak- 
ing her long ears; then the huge, unmitigated cow 
vamoosed into the brush. McDonald remarked that 
it was 'a varra fortunate shot, almaist providaintial !' 
And so it was ; for if it had gone six inches lower, and 
the news had gotten out at Bathurst, it would have 
cost me a fine of two hundred dollars." 

"Ye did weel. Dud," puffed McLeod; '*varra weel 
indeed — for the coo!" 

"After that," continued Hemenway, "of course 
my nerve was a little shaken, and we went back to 
the main camp on the river, to rest over Sunday. 
That was all right, wasn't it, Mac?" 

"Aye!" replied McLeod, who was a strict member 



Silverhorns 49 

of the Presbyterian church at Moncton. ^*That was 
surely a varra safe thing to do. Even a hunter, I'm 
thinkin', wouldna Hke to be breakin' twa command- 
ments in the ane day — the foorth and the saxth !" 

^'Perhaps not. It's enough to break one, as you 
do once a fortnight when you run your train into 
Riviere du Loup Sunday morning. How's that, you 
old Calvinist?" 

'* Dudley, ma son," said the engineer, ^Minna 
airgue a point that ye canna understond. There's 
guid an' suffeecient reasons for the train. But ye'll 
ne'er be claimin' that moose-huntin' is a wark o' 
neecessity or maircy?" 

**No, no, of course not; but then, you see, barring 
Sundays, we felt that it was necessary to do all we 
could to get a moose, just for the sake of our repu- 
tations. Billy, the cook, was particularly strong 
about it. He said that an old woman in Bathurst, 
a kind of fortune-teller, had told him that he was 
going to have *la bonne chance' on this trip. He 
wanted to try his own mouth at 'calling.' He had 
never really done it before. But he had been prac- 
tising all winter in imitation of a tame cow moose 
that Johnny Moreau had, and he thought he could 
make the sound 'b'en bon,' So he got the birch-bark 
horn and gave us a sample of his skill. McDonald 
told me privately that it was 'nae sa bad; a deal 
better than Pete's feckless bellow.' We agreed to 
leave the Indian to keep the camp (after locking up 
the whiskey-flask in my bag), and take Billy with us 
on Monday to 'call' at Hogan's Pond. 

''It's a small bit of water, about three-quarters of 
a mile long and four hundred yards across, and four 



50 Out of Doors 

miles back from the river. There is no trail to it, 
but a blazed line runs part of the way, and for the 
rest you follow up the little brook that runs out of 
the pond. We stuck up our shelter in a hollow on 
the brook, half a mile below the pond, so that the 
smoke of our fire would not drift over the hunting- 
ground, and waited till five o'clock in the afternoon. 
Then we went up to the pond, and took our position 
in a clump of birch-trees on the edge of the open 
meadow that runs round the east shore. Just at 
dark Billy began to call, and it was beautiful. You 
know how it goes. Three short grunts, and then a 
long ooooo-aaaa-ooooh, winding up with another 
grunt ! It sounded lor^elier than a love-sick hippo- 
potamus on the house-top. It rolled and echoed 
over the hills as if it would wake the dead. 

*' There was a fine moon shining, nearly full, and 
a few clouds floating by. Billy called, and called, 
and called again. The air grew colder and colder; 
light frost on the meadow-grass; our teeth were 
chattering, fingers numb. 

''Then we heard a bull give a short bawl, away 
off to the southward. Presently we could hear his 
horns knock against the trees, far up on the hill. 
McDonald whispered, 'He's comin',' and Billy gave 
another call. 

"But it was another bull that answered, back of 
the north end of the pond, and pretty soon we could 
hear him rapping along through the woods. Then 
everything was still. 'Call agen,' says McDonald, 
and Billy called again. 

"This time the bawl came from another bull, on 
top of the western hill, straight across the pond. It 



Silver horns 51 

seemed to start up the other two bulls, and we could 
hear all three of them thrashing along, as fast as they 
could come, toward the pond. 'Call agen, a wee 
one,' says McDonald, trembling with joy. And 
Billy called a little, seducing call, with two grunts 
at the end. 

''Well, sir, at that, a cow and a calf came rushing 
down through the brush not two hundred yards away 
from us, and the three bulls went splash into the 
water, one at the south end, one at the north end, 
and one on the west shore. 'Lord,' whispers Mc- 
Donald, 'it's a meenadgerie !' " 

"Dud," said the engineer, getting down to open 
the furnace door a crack, "this is mair than murder 
ye're comin' at; it's a buitchery — or else it's juist a 
pack o' lees." 

"I give you my word," said Hemenway, "it's all 
true as the catechism. But let me go on. The cow 
and the calf only stayed in the water a few minutes, 
and then ran back through the woods. But the 
three bulls went sloshing around in the pond as if 
they were looking for something. We could hear 
them, but we could not see any of them, for the sky 
had clouded up, and they kept far away from us. 
Billy tried another short call, but they did not come 
any nearer. McDonald whispered that he thought 
the one in the south end might be the biggest, and 
he might be feeding, and the two others might be 
young bulls, and they might be keeping away be- 
cause they were afraid of the big one. This seemed 
reasonable; and I said that I was going to crawl 
around the meadow to the south end. 'Keep near 
a tree,' says Mac; and I started. 



52 Out of Doors 

"There was a deep trail, worn by animals, through 
the high grass; and in this I crept along on my hands 
and knees. It was very wet and muddy. My boots 
were full of cold water. After ten minutes I came 
to a little point running out into the pond, and one 
young birch growing on it. Under this I crawled, 
and rising up on my knees looked over the top of 
the grass and bushes. 

"There, in a shallow bay, standing knee-deep in 
the water, and rooting up the lily-stems with his long, 
pendulous nose, was the biggest and blackest bull 
moose in the world. As he pulled the roots from the 
mud and tossed up his dripping head I could see his 
horns — four and a half feet across, if they were an 
inch, and the palms shining like tea-trays in the 
moonlight. I tell you, old Silverhorns was the most 
beautiful monster I ever saw. 

"But he was too far away to shoot by that dim 
light, so I left my birch-tree and crawled along 
toward the edge of the bay. A breath of wind must 
have blown across me to him, for he lifted his head, 
sniffed, grunted, came out of the water, and began 
to trot slowly along the trail which led past me. I 
knelt on one knee and tried to take aim. A black 
cloud came over the moon. I couldn't see either of 
the sights on the gun. But when the bull came op- 
posite to me, about fifty yards off, I blazed away 
at a venture. 

"He reared straight up on his hind legs — it looked 
as if he rose fifty feet in the air — wheeled, and went 
walloping along the trail, around the south end of 
the pond. In a minute he was lost in the woods. 
Good-by, Silverhorns!" 



Silverhorns 53 

^'Ye tell it weel/* said McLeod, reaching out for a 
fresh cigar, ''fegs! Ah doot Sir Walter himsel' 
couldna impruve upon it. An, sae thot's the way ye 
didna murder puir Seelverhorrns ? It's a tale Tm 
joyfu' to be hearin'.*' 

''Wait a bit," Hemenway answered. ''That's not 
the end, by a long shot. There's worse to follow. 
The next morning we returned to the pond at day- 
break, for McDonald thought I might have wounded 
the moose. We searched the bushes and the woods 
where he went out very carefully, looking for drops 
of blood on his trail." 

"Bluid!" groaned the engineer. "Hech, mon, 
wouldna that come nigh to mak' ye greet, to find 
the beast's red bluid splashed ower the leaves, and 
think o' him staggerin' on thro' the forest, drippin' 
the heart oot o' him wi' every step?" 

*'But we didn't find any blood, you old sentimen- 
talist. That shot in the dark was a clear miss. We 
followed the trail by broken bushes and footprints, 
for half a mile, and then came back to the pond and 
turned to go down through the edge of the woods to 
the camp. 

"It was just after sunrise. I was walking a few 
yards ahead, McDonald next, and Billy last. Sud- 
denly he looked around to the left, gave a low whistle 
and dropped to the ground, pointing northward. 
Away at the head of the pond, beyond the glitter of 
the sun on the water, the big blackness of Silver- 
horns' head and body was pushing through the 
bushes, dripping with dew. 

"Each of us flopped down behind the nearest 
shrub as if we had been playing squat-tag. Billy 



54 Out of Doors 

had the birch-bark horn with him, and he gave a 
low, short call. Silverhorns heard it, turned, and 
came parading slowly down the western shore, now 
on the sand-beach, now splashing through the shal- 
low water. We could see every motion and hear 
every sound. He marched along as if he owned the 
earth, swinging his huge head from side to side and 
grunting at each step. 

'*You see, we were just in the edge of the woods, 
strung along the south end of the pond, Billy nearest 
the west shore, where the moose was walking, Mc- 
Donald next, and I last, perhaps fifteen yards farther 
to the east. It was a fool arrangement, but we had 
no time to think about it. McDonald whispered 
that I should wait until the moose came close to us 
and stopped. 

**So I waited. I could see him swagger along the 
sand and step out around the fallen logs. The 
nearer he came the bigger his horns looked; each 
palm was like an enormous silver fish-fork with 
twenty prongs. Then he went out of my sight for 
a minute as he passed around a little bay in the south- 
west corner, getting nearer and nearer to Billy. But 
I could still hear his steps distinctly — slosh, slosh, 
slosh — thud, thud, thud (the grunting had stopped) 
— closer came the sound, until it was directly behind 
the dense green branches of a fallen balsam-tree, not 
twenty feet away from Billy. Then suddenly the 
noise ceased. I could hear my own heart pounding 
at my ribs, but nothing else. And of Silverhorns 
not hair nor hide was visible. It looked as if he 
must be a Boojum, and had the power to 
* Softly and silently vanish away.* 



Silver horns 55 

*' Billy and Mac were beckoning to me fiercely and 
pointing to the green balsam-top. I gripped my rifle 
and started to creep toward them. . A little twig, 
about as thick as the tip of a fishing-rod, cracked un- 
der my knee. There was a terrible crash behind the 
balsam, a plunging through the underbrush and a 
rattling among the branches, a lumbering gallop up 
the hill through the forest, and Silverhorns was gone 
into the invisible. 

**He had stopped behind the tree because he 
smelled the grease on Billy's boots. As he stood 
there, hesitating, Billy and Mac could see his shoul- 
der and his side through a gap in the branches — a 
dead-easy shot. But so far as I was concerned, he 
might as well have been in Alaska. I told you that 
the way we had placed ourselves was a fool arrange- 
ment. But McDonald would not say anything about 
it, except to express his conviction that it was not pre- 
destinated we should get that moose,'' 

'*Ah didna ken auld Rob had sae much theology 
aboot him,'* commented McLeod. ^*But noo I'm 
thinkin' ye went back to yer main camp, an' lat puir 
Seelverhorrns live oot his life?" 

**Not much, did we! For now we knew that he 
wasn't badly frightened by the adventure of the 
night before, and that we might get another chance 
at him. In the afternoon it began to rain; and it 
poured for forty-eight hours. We cowered in our 
shelter before a smoky fire, and lived on short rations 
of crackers and dried prunes — it was a hungry time." 

"But wasna there slathers o' food at the main 
camp ? Ony fule wad ken eneugh to gae doon to 
the river an' tak' a guid fill-up." 



56 Out of Doors 

^^ But that wasn't what we wanted. It was Silver- 
horns. Billy and I made McDonald stay, and 
Thursday afternoon, when the clouds broke away, 
we went back to the pond to have a last try at turn- 
ing our luck. 

**This time we took our positions with great care, 
among some small spruces on a point that ran out 
from the southern meadow. I was farthest to the 
west; McDonald (who had also brought his gun) 
was next; Billy, with the horn, was farthest away 
from the point where he thought the moose would 
come out. So Billy began to call, very beautifully. 
The long echoes went bellowing over the hills. The 
afternoon was still and the setting sun shone through 
a light mist, like a ball of red gold. 

"Fifteen minutes after sundown Silverhorns gave 
a loud bawl from the western ridge and came crash- 
ing down the hill. He cleared the bushes two or 
three hundred yards to our left with a leap, rushed 
into the pond, and came wading around the south 
shore toward us. The bank here was rather high, 
perhaps four feet above the water, and the mud be- 
low it was deep, so that the moose sank in to his 
knees. I give you my word, as he came along there 
was nothing visible to Mac and me except his ears 
and his horns. Everything else was hidden below 
the bank. 

"There were we behind our little spruce-trees. 
And there was Silverhorns, standing still now, right 
in front of us. And all that Mac and I could see 
were those big ears and those magnificent antlers, 
appearing and disappearing as he lifted and lowered 
his head. It was a fearful situation. And there was 



Silver horns 57 

Billy, with his birch-bark hooter, forty yards below 
us — he could see the moose perfectly. 

'*I looked at Mac, and he looked at me. He 
whispered something about predestination. Then 
Billy lifted his horn and m.ade ready to give a little 
soft grunt, to see if the moose wouldn^t move along 
a bit, just to oblige us. But as Billy drew in his 
breath, one of those tiny fool flies that are always 
blundering around a man's face flew straight down 
his throat. Instead of a call he burst out with a 
furious, strangling fit of coughing. The moose gave 
a snort, and a wild leap in the water, and galloped 
away under the bank, the way he had come. Mac 
and I both fired at his vanishing ears and horns, but 
of course " 

*'A11 aboooard!" The conductor's shout rang 
along the platform. 

''Line's clear," exclaimed McLeod, rising. ''Noo 
we'll be off ! Wull ye stay here wi' me, or gang awa' 
back to yer bed?" 

''Here," answered Hemenway, not budging from 
his place on the bench. 

The bell clanged, and the powerful machine puffed 
out on its flaring way through the night. Faster and 
faster came the big explosive breaths, until they 
blended in a long steady roar, and the train was 
sweeping northw^ard at forty miles an hour. The 
clouds had broken; the night had grown colder; 
the gibbous moon gleamed over the vast and soli- 
tary landscape. It was a different thing to Hemen- 
way, riding in the cab of the locomotive, from an 
ordinary journey in the passenger-car or an uncon- 
scious ride in the sleeper. Here he was on the crest 



58 Out of Doors 

of motion, at the fore-front of speed, and the quiver- 
ing engine with the long train behind it seemed Hke 
a living creature leaping along the track. It re- 
sponded to the labor of the fireman and the touch 
of the engineer almost as if it could think and feel. 
Its pace quickened without a jar; its great eye 
pierced the silvery space of moonlight with a shaft 
of blazing yellow; the rails sang before it and trem- 
bled behind it; it was an obedient and joyful mon- 
ster, conquering distance and devouring darkness. 

On the wide level barrens beyond the Tete-a- 
Gouche River the locomotive reached its best speed, 
purring like a huge cat and running smoothly. Mc- 
Leod leaned back on his bench with a satisfied air. 

''She's doin' fine, the nicht,'' said he. ''Ah'm 
thinkin', whiles, o* yer auld Seelverhorrns. Whaur 
is he noo? Awa' up on Hogan's Pond, gallantin' 
around i' the licht o' the mune wi' a lady moose, an' 
the gladness juist bubblin' in his hairt. Ye're no 
sorry that he's leevin' yet, are ye. Dud?'' 

''Well," answered Hemenway slowly, between the 
puffs of his pipe, "I can't say I'm sorry that he's 
alive and happy, though I'm not glad that I lost him. 
But he did his best, the old rogue; he played a good 
game, and he deserved to win. Where he is now 
nobody can tell. He was travelling like a streak of 
lightning when I last saw him. By this time he may 
be " 

"What's yon?" cried McLeod, springing up. Far 
ahead, in the narrow apex of the converging rails, 
stood a black form, motionless, mysterious. McLeod 
grasped the whistle-cord. The black form loomed 
higher in the moonlight and was clearly silhouetted 




Copyrighted hy J . A. Lorenz 

Lieutenant-Commander Henry van Dyke, U. S. N. R. F. 



Silverhorns 59 

against the horizon — a big moose standing across the 
track. They could see his grotesque head, his shad- 
owy horns, his high, sloping shoulders. The engineer 
pulled the cord. The whistle shrieked loud and long. 

The moose turned and faced the sound. The 
glare of the headlight fascinated, challenged, angered 
him. There he stood defiant, front feet planted wide 
apart, head lowered, gazing steadily at the unknown 
enemy that was rushing toward him. He was the 
monarch of the wilderness. There was nothing in 
the world that he feared, except those strange-smell- 
ing little beasts on two legs who crept around through 
the woods and shot fire out of sticks. This was 
surely not one of those treacherous animals, but some 
strange new creature that dared to shriek at him 
and try to drive him out of its way. He would not 
move. He would try his strength against this big 
yellow-eyed beast. 

^'Losh!'' cried McLeod; ''he's gaun' to fecht us!'' 
and he dropped the cord, grabbed the levers, and 
threw the steam off and the brakes on hard. The 
heavy train slid groaning and jarring along the track. 
The moose never stirred. The fire smouldered in his 
small narrow eyes. His black crest was bristling. 
As the engine bore down upon him, not a rod away, 
he reared high in the air, his antlers flashing in the 
blaze, and struck full at the headlight with his im- 
mense fore feet. There was a shattering of glass, a 
crash, a heavy shock, and the train slid on through 
the darkness, lit only by the moon. 

Thirty or forty yards beyond, the momentum was 
exhausted and the engine came to a stop. Hemen- 
way and McLeod clambered down and ran back, 



6o Out of Doors 

with the other trainmen and a few of the passengers. 
The moose was lying in the ditch beside the track, 
stone dead and frightfully shattered. But the great 
head and the vast, spreading antlers were intact. 

''Seelver-horrns, sure eneugh !'' said McLeod, bend- 
ing over him. ^*He was crossin' frae the Nepissiguit 
to the Jacquet; but he didna get across. Weel, Dud, 
are ye glad ? Ye hae killt yer first moose !" 

'* Yes,'' said Hemenway, *4t's my first moose. But 
it's your first moose, too. And I think it's our last. 
Ye gods, what a fighter ! " 



PART II 
POEMS 



BIRDS IN THE MORNING 

This is the carol the Robin throws 
Over the edge of the valley; 

Listen how boldly it flows, 
Sally on sally: 

Tirra-lirraj 
Down the river^ 
Laughing water 
All a-quiver. 
Day is near. 
Clear, clear. 
Fish are breaking, 
Time for waking. 
Tup, tup, tup ! 
Do you hear ? 
All clear — 
Wake up ! 

This is the ballad the Bluebird sings, 

Unto his mate replying, 
Shaking the tune from his wings 

While he is flying: 



63 



64 Poems 

Surely^ surely, surely, 

Life is dear 

Even here. 

Blue above, 

You to love, 
Purely, purely, purely. 

This IS the song the Brown Thrush flings 

Out of his thicket of roses; 
Hark how it warbles and rings, 

Mark how it closes: 

Luck, luck. 
What luck ? 
Good enough for me t 
Pm alive, you see. 
Sun shining, 
No repining ; 
Never borrow 
Idle sorrow ; 
Drop it ! 
Cover it up ! 
Hold your cup! 
Joy will fill it, 
Don't spill it. 
Steady, be ready. 
Good luck ! 



THE SONG-SPARROW 

There is a bird I know so well, 
It seems as if he must have sung 
Beside my crib when I was young; 

Before I knew the way to spell 

The name of even the smallest bird, 
His gentle-joyful song I heard. 

Now see if you can tell, my dear, 

What bird it is that, every year, 

Sings ^' Sweet — sweet — sweet — very merry cheer, '' 

He comes in March, when winds are strong, 
And snow returns to hide the earth; 
But still he warms his heart with mirth, 
And waits for May. He lingers long 
While flowers fade; and every day 
Repeats his small, contented lay; 
As if to say, we need not fear 
The season^s change, if love is here 
With ''Sweet — sweet — sweet — very merry cheer.'' 



6s 



66 Poems 

He does not wear a Joseph's coat 
Of many colors, smart and gay; 
His suit is Quaker brown and gray, 

With darker patches at his throat. 

And yet of all the well-dressed throng 
Not one can sing so brave a song. 

It makes the pride of looks appear 
A vain and foolish thing, to hear 

His '^ Sweet — sweet — sweet — very merry cheer.'' 

A lofty place he does not love. 

But sits by choice, and well at ease, 
In hedges, and in little trees 
That stretch their slender arms above 
The meadow-brook; and there he sings 
Till all the field with pleasure rings; 
And so he tells in every ear. 
That lowly homes to heaven are near 
In *' Sweet — sweet — sweet — very merry cheer, '^ 

I like the tune, I like the words; 

They seem so true, so free from art. 

So friendly, and so full of heart, 
That if but one of all the birds 

Could be my comrade everywhere, 

My little brother of the air. 
This is the one Fd choose, my dear. 
Because he*d bless me, every year. 
With ^^ Sweet — sweet — sweet — very merry cheer. 



THE MARYLAND YELLOW-THROAT 

While May bedecks the naked trees 
With tassels and embroideries, 
And many blue-eyed violets beam 
Along the edges of the stream, 
I hear a voice that seems to say, 
Now near at hand, now far away, 
^' Witchery — witchery — witchery /" 

An incantation so serene, 
So innocent, befits the scene: 
There's magic in that small bird's note- 
See, there he flits — the Yellow- throat; 
A living sunbeam, tipped with wings, 
A spark of light that shines and sings 
'' Witchery — witchery — witchery / " 

You prophet with a pleasant name, 
If out of Mary-land you came, 
You know the way that thither goes 
Where Mary's lovely garden grows: 
Fly swiftly back to her, I pray. 
And try, to call her down this way, 
'* V/itchery — witchery — witchery !'' 



67 



68 Poems 

Tell her to leave her cockle-shells, 
And all her little silver bells 
That blossom into melody, 
And all her maids less fair than she. 
She does not need these pretty things, 
For everywhere she comes, she brings 
'' Witchery — witchery — witchery ! '* 

The woods are greening overhead, 
And flowers adorn each mossy bed; 
The waters babble as they run — 
One thing is lacking, only one: 
If Mary were but here to-day, 
I would believe your charming lay, 
'* Witchery — witchery — witchery /'' 

Along the shady road I look — 
Who's coming now across the brook? 
A woodland maid, all robed in white — 
The leaves dance round her with delight. 
The stream laughs out beneath her feet- 
Sing, merry bird, the charm's complete, 
*^ Witchery — witchery — witchery!'' 



THE WHIP-POOR-WILL 

Do you remember, father — 
It seems so long ago — 

The day we fished together 
Along the Pocono? 

At dusk I waited for you, 
Beside the lumber-mill, 

And there I heard a hidden bird 
That chanted, '* whip-poor-will !*' 
'* Whippoorwill ! whippoorwill ! ** 
Sad and shrill — '^whippoorwill !'' 

The place was all deserted; 

The mill-wheel hung at rest; 
The lonely star of evening 

Was quivering in the west; 
The veil of night was falling; 

The winds were folded still; 
And everywhere the trembling air 

Re-echoed * ' whip-poor-will ! ' * 

You seemed so long in coming, 

I felt so much alone; 
The wide, dark world was round me, 

And life was all unknown; 
The hand of sorrow touched me. 

And made my senses thrill 
With all the pain that haunts the strain 

Of mournful whip-poor-will. 
69 



70 Poems 

What did I know of trouble? 

An idle little lad; 
I had not learned the lessons 

That make men wise and sad. 
I dreamed of grief and parting, 

And something seemed to fill 
My heart with tears, while in my ears 

Resounded ' ' whip-poor-will ! ' * 

'Twas but a shadowy sadness, 

That lightly passed away; 
But I have known the substance 

Of sorrow, since that day. 
For nev^ermore at twilight, 

Beside the silent mill, 
ril wait for you, in the falling dew, 

And hear the whip-poor-will. 

But if you still remember, 

In that fair land of light. 
The pains and fears that touch us 

Along this edge of night, 
I think all earthly grieving, 

And all our mortal ill, 
To you must seem like a boy's sad dream, 

Who hears the whip-poor-will. 

*' Whippoorwill ! whippoorwill ! *' 

A passing thrill — ^^whippoorwill !^^ 



AN ANGLER'S WISH IN TOWN 



When tulips bloom in Union Square, 
And timid breaths of vernal air 

Go wandering down the dusty town, 
Like children lost in Vanity Fair; 

When every long, unlovely row 
Of westward houses stands aglow, 

And leads the eyes toward sunset skies 
Beyond the hills where green trees grow; 

Then weary seems the street parade. 
And weary books, and weary trade; 

Tm only wishing to go a-fishing; 
For this the month of May was made. 

II 

I guess the pussy-willows now 
Are creeping out on every bough 

Along the brook; and robins look 
For early worms behind the plough. 

The thistle-birds have changed their dun, 
For yellow coats, to match the sun; 

And in the same array of flame 
The Dandelion Show's begun. 

The flocks of young anemones 

Are dancing round the budding trees: 

Who can help wishing to go a-fishing 
In days as full of joy as these? 

71 



72 Poems 

III 

I think the meadow-lark's clear sound 
Leaks upward slowly from the ground, 

While on the wing, the bluebirds ring 
Their wedding-bells to woods around. 

The flirting chewink calls his dear 
Behind the bush; and very near, 

Where water flows, where green grass grows, 
Song-sparrows gently sing, ''Good cheer/* 

And, best of all, through twilight's calm 
The hermit-thrush repeats his psalm. 

How much I'm wishing to go a-fishing 
In days so sweet with music's balm ! 

IV 

'Tis not a proud desire of mine; 
I ask for nothing superfine; 

No heavy weight, no salmon great. 
To break the record, or my line: 

Only an idle little stream. 

Whose amber waters softly gleam. 

Where I may wade, through woodland shade. 
And cast the fly, and loaf, and dream: 

Only a trout or two, to dart 

From foaming pools, and try my art: 

No more I'm wishing — old-fashioned fishing, 
And just a day on Nature's heart. 



AMERICA 

I LOVE thine inland seas, 
Thy groves of giant trees, 

Thy rolling plains; 
Thy rivers' mighty sweep. 
Thy mystic canyons deep, 
Thy mountains wild and steep, 

All thy domains; 

Thy silver Eastern strands. 
Thy Golden Gate that stands 

Wide to the West; 
Thy flowery Southland fair, 
Thy sweet and crystal air, — 
O land beyond compare. 

Thee I love best ! 
March, 1906. 



73 



DOORS OF DARING 

The mountains that Inclose the vale 
With walls of granite, steep and high, 

Invite the fearless foot to scale 
Their stairway toward the sky. 

The restless, deep, dividing sea 

That flows and foams from shore to shore, 
Calls to its sunburned chivalry, 

^*Push out, set sail, explore!'* 

The bars of life at which we fret, 
That seem to prison and control, 

Are but the doors of daring, set 
Ajar before the soul. 

Say not, ''Too poor,*' but freely give; 

Sigh not, ''Too weak," but boldly try; 
You never can begin to live 

Until you dare to die. 



74 



RELIANCE 

Not to the swift, the race: 
Not to the strong, the fight: 
Not to the righteous, perfect grace: 
Not to the wise, the light. 

But often faltering feet 
Come surest to the goal; 
And they who walk in darkness meet 
The sunrise of the soul. 

A thousand times by night 
The Syrian hosts have died; 
A thousand times the vanquished right 
Hath risen, glorified. 

The truth the wise men sought 
Was spoken by a child; 
The alabaster box was brought 
In trembling hands defi_led. 

Not from my torch, the gleam, 
But from the stars above: 
Not from my heart, life's crystal stream, 
But from the depths of Love. 



75 



HOW SPRING COMES TO SHASTA JIM 

I NEVER saw no ''red gods''; I dunno wot's a '*lure''; 
But if it's sumpin' takin', then Spring has got it sure; 
An' it doesn't need no Kiplin's, nor yet no London 

Jacks, 
To make up guff about it, while settin' in their shacks. 

It's sumpin' very simple 'at happens in the Spring, 
But it changes all the lookin's of every blessed thing; 
The buddin' woods look bigger, the mounting twice 

as high, 
But the house looks kindo smaller, though I couldn't 

tell ye why. 

It's cur'ous wot a show-down the month of April 

makes, 
Between the reely livin', an' the things that's only 

fakes ! 
Machines an' barns an' buildin's, they never give no 

sign; 
But the livin' things look lively when Spring is on 

the line. 

She doesn't come too suddin, nor she doesn't come 

too slow; 
Her gaits is some cayprishus, an' the next ye never 

know, — 
A single-foot o' sunshine, a buck o' snow er hail, — 
But don't be disapp'inted, for Spring ain't goin' ter 

fail. 

76 



How Spring Comes to Shasta Jim 77 

She's loopin' down the hillside, — the driffs is fadin' 

out. 
She's runnin' down the river, — d'ye see them risin' 

trout ? 
She's loafin' down the canyon, — the squaw-bed's 

growin' blue, 
An' the teeny Johnny- jump-ups is jest a-peekin' 

thru. 

A thousan' miles o' pine-trees, with Douglas firs be- 
tween. 
Is waitin' for her fingers to freshen up their green; 
With little tips o' brightness the firs 'ill sparkle thick, 
An' every yaller pine-tree, a giant candlestick ! 

The underbrush is risin' an' spreadin' all around. 
Just like a mist o' greenness 'at hangs above the 

ground ; 
A million manzanitas 'ill soon be full o' pink; 
So saddle up, my sonny, — it's time to ride, I think ! 

We'll ford or swim the river, becos there ain't no 

bridge ; 
We'll foot the gulches careful, an' lope along the 

ridge; 
Vv^e'll take the trail to Nowhere, an' travel till we tire, 
An' camp beneath a pine-tree, an' sleep beside the 

fire. 



78 Poems 

We'll see the blue-quail chickens, an' hear 'em pipin' 

clear; 
An' p'raps we'll sight a brown-bear, or else a bunch 

o' deer; 
But never a heathen goddess or god 'ill meet our 

eyes; 
For why? There isn't any ! They're just a pack o' 

lies ! 

Oh, wot's the use o' ''red gods," an' ''Pan," an' all 
that stuff ? 

The natcheral facts o' Springtime is wonderful enuff ! 

An' if there's Someone made 'em, I guess He under- 
stood. 

To be alive in Springtime would make a man feel 
good. 

California, 19 13. 



THE NAME OF FRANCE 

Give us a name to fill the mind 
With the shining thoughts that lead mankind, 
The glory of learning, the joy of art, — 
A name that tells of a splendid part 
In the long, long toil and the strenuous fight 
Of the human race to win its way 
From the feudal darkness into the day 
Of Freedom, Brotherhood, Equal Right, — 
A name like a star, a name of light. 
I give you France ! 

Give us a name to stir the blood 
With a warmer glow and a swifter flood, 
At the touch of a courage that knows not fear,- 
A name like the sound of a trumpet, clear, 
And silver-sweet, and iron-strong. 
That calls three million men to their feet, 
Ready to march, and steady to meet 
The foes who threaten that name with wrong, — 
A name that rings like a battle-song. 
I give you France ! 



79 



8o Poems 

Give us a name to move the heart 
With the strength that noble griefs impart, 
A name that speaks of the blood outpoured 
To save mankind from the sway of the sword, — 
A name that calls on the world to share 
In the burden of sacrificial strife 
When the cause at stake is the world's free life 
And the rule of the people everywhere, — 
A name like a vow, a name like a prayer. 
I give you France! 



PEACE-HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC 

O Lord our God, Thy mighty hand 
Hath made our country free; 
From all her broad and happy land 
May praise arise to Thee. 
Fulfil the promise of her youth, 
Her liberty defend; 
By law and order, love and truth, 
America befriend ! 

The strength of every State increase 
In Union's golden chain; 
Her thousand cities fill with peace. 
Her million fields with grain. 
The virtues of her mingled blood 
In one new people blend; 
By unity and brotherhood, 
America befriend ! 

O suffer not her feet to stray; 

But guide her untaught might, 

That she may walk in peaceful day. 

And lead the world in light. 

Bring down the proud, lift up the poor. 

Unequal ways amend; 

By justice, nation-wide and sure, 

America befriend ! 



Si 



82 Poems 



Thro' all the waiting land proclaim 

Thy gospel of good-will; 

And may the music of Thy name 

In every bosom thrill. 

O'er hill and vale, from sea to sea, 

Thy holy reign extend; 

By faith and hope and charity, 

America befriend ! 



PART III 
STORIES 



THE KEEPER OF THE LIGHT 
I 

When the light-house was built, many years ago, 
the Isle of the Wise Virgin had another name. It 
was called the Isle of Birds. Thousands of sea-fowl 
nested there. The handful of people who lived on 
the shore robbed the nests and slaughtered the birds, 
with considerable profit. It was perceived in ad- 
vance that the building of the light-house would in- 
terfere with this, and with other things. Hence it 
was not altogether a popular improvement. Marcel 
Thibault, the oldest inhabitant, was the leader of the 
opposition. 

''That light-house!'' said he, ''what good will it 
be for us? We know the way in and out when it 
makes clear weather, by day or by night. But when 
the sky gets cloudy, when it makes fog, then we stay 
with ourselves at home. We know the way. What ? 
The stranger boats? The stranger boats need not 
to come here, if they know not the way. The more 
fish, the more seals, the more everything will there 
be left for us. Just because of the stranger boats, to 
build something that makes all the birds wild and 
spoils the hunting — that is a fool's work. The good 
God made no stupid light on the Isle of Birds. He 
saw no necessity of it. 

"Besides," continued Thibault, puffing slowly at 
his pipe, "besides — those stranger boats, sometimes 
they are lost, they come ashore. It is sad! But 
who gets the things that are saved, all sorts of things, 

85 



B6 Stories 

good to put into our houses, good to eat, good to sell, 
sometimes a boat that can be patched up almost like 
new — who gets these things, eh? Doubtless those 
for whom the good God intended them. But who 
shall get them when this light-house is built, eh? 
Tell me that, you Baptiste Fortin.*' 

Fortin represented the party of progress in the lit- 
tle parliament of the beach. He had come down 
from Quebec some years ago, bringing with him a 
wife and two little daughters, and a good many new 
notions about life. He had good luck at the cod- 
fishing, and built a house with windows at the side 
as well as in front. When his third girl, Nataline, 
was born, he went so far as to paint the house red, 
and put on a kitchen, and enclose a bit of ground for 
a yard. This marked him as a radical, an innovator. 
It was expected that he would defend the building of 
the light-house. And he did. 

''Monsieur Thibault,'' he said, **you talk well, but 
you talk too late. It is of a past age, your talk. A 
new time comes to the North Shore. We begin to 
civilize ourselves. To hold back against the light 
would be our shame. This light-house means good: 
good for us, and good for all who come to this coast. 
It will bring more trade to us. It will bring a boat 
with the mail, with newspapers, perhaps once, per- 
haps twice a month, all through the summer. It will 
bring us into the great world. To lose that for the 
sake of a few birds would be a pity. Besides, it is 
impossible. The light-house is coming, certain." 

Fortin was right, of course. 

The light-house arrived. It was a very good house 
for that day. The keeper's dwelling had three rooms 



The Keeper of the Light 87 

and was solidly built. The tower was thirty feet 
high. The lantern held a revolving light, and once 
every minute it was turned by clock-work, flashing a 
broad belt of radiance fifteen miles across the sea. 
All night long that big bright eye was opening and 
shutting. "Look!'* said Thibault, ''it winks like a 
one-eyed Windigo." 

The Department of Marine and Fisheries sent 
down an expert from Quebec to keep the light in 
order and run it for the first summer. He took For- 
tin as his assistant. By the end of August he re- 
ported to headquarters that the light was all right, 
and that Fortin was qualified to be appointed keeper. 
Before October was out the certificate of appoint- 
ment came back, and the expert packed his bag to 
go up the river. 

**Now look here, Fortin,'' said he, '*this is no fish- 
ing trip. Do you think you are up to this job?'' 

''I suppose," said Fortin. 

''Well now, do you remember all this business 
about the machinery that turns the lantern ? That's 
the main thing. The bearings must be kept well 
oiled, and the weight must never get out of order. 
The clock-face will tell you when it is running right. 
If anything gets hitched up, here's the crank to keep 
it going until you can straighten the machine again. 
It's easy enough to turn it. But you must never let 
it stop between dark and daylight. The regular turn 
once a minute — that's the mark of this light. If it 
shines steady it might as well be out. Yes, better! 
Any vessel coming along here in a dirty night and 
seeing a fixed light would take it for the Cape Seal 
and run ashore. This particular light has got to 



88 Stories 

revolve once a minute every night from April first to 
December tenth, certain. Can you do it?" 

'* Certain/' said Fortin. 

** That's the way I like to hear a man talk ! Now, 
youVe got oil enough to last you through till the 
tenth of December, when you close the light, and to 
run on for a month in the spring after you open 
again. The ice may be late in going out and per- 
haps the supply-boat can't get down before the mid- 
dle of April, or thereabouts. But she'll bring plenty 
of oil when she comes, so you'll be all right." 

''AH right," said Fortin. 

"Well, I've said it all, I guess. You understand 
what you've got to do? Good-by and good luck. 
You're the keeper of the light now." 

''Good luck," said Fortin, "I am going to keep it." 

The same day he shut up the red house on the 
beach and moved to the white house on the island 
with Marie-Anne, his wife, and the three girls, Alma, 
aged seventeen, Azilda, aged fifteen, and Nataline, 
aged thirteen. He was the captain, and Marie-Anne 
was the mate, and the three girls were the crew. 
They were all as full of happy pride as if they had 
come into possession of a great fortune. 

It was the thirty-first day of October. A snow- 
shower had silvered the island. The afternoon was 
clear and beautiful. As the sun sloped toward the 
rose-colored hills of the mainland the whole family 
stood out in front of the light-house looking up at 
the tower. 

"Regard him well, my children," said Baptiste; 
"God has given him to us to keep, and to keep us. 
Thibault says he is a Windigo. Well ! We shall see 



The Keeper of the Light 89 

that he is a friendly Windigo. Every minute all the 
night he shall wink, just for kindness and good luck 
to all the world, till the daylight.'* 



II 

On the ninth of November, at three o'clock in the 
afternoon, Baptiste went into the tower to see that 
the clock-work was in order for the night. He set 
the dial on the machine, put a few drops of oil on the 
bearings of the cylinder, and started to wind up the 
weight. 

It rose a few inches, gave a dull click, and then 
stopped dead. He tugged a little harder, but it 
would not move. Then he tried to let it down. He 
pushed at the lever that set the clock-work in motion. 

Then it dawned fearfully upon him that something 
must be wrong. Trembling with anxiety, he climbed 
up and peered in among the wheels. 

The escapement wheel was cracked clean through, 
as if someone had struck it with the head of an axe, 
and one of the pallets of the spindle was stuck fast 
in the crack. He could knock it out easily enough, 
but when the crack came around again the pallet 
would catch and the clock would stop once more. It 
was a fatal injury. 

No matter how the injury to the clock-work was 
done. No matter who was to be blamed or pun- 
ished for it. That could wait. The question now 
was whether the light would fail or not. And it must 
be answered within a quarter of an hour. 

'* Marie-Anne! Alma!'' he shouted, ''all of you! 
To me, in the tower!'' 



90 Stories 

He was up in the lantern when they came running 
in, full of curiosity, excited, asking twenty questions 
at once. Nataline climbed up the ladder and put 
her head through the trap-door. 

*'What is it?'' she panted. ''What has hap '' 

''Go down," answered her father, "go down all at 
once. Wait for me. I am coming. I will explain." 

The explanation was not altogether lucid and 
scientific. There were some bad words mixed up 
with it. 

Baptiste was still hot with anger and the unsat- 
isfied desire to whip somebody, he did not know 
whom, for something, he did not know what. But 
angry as he was, he was still sane enough to hold his 
mind hard and close to the main point. The crank 
must be adjusted; the machine must be ready to 
turn before dark. While he worked he hastily made 
the situation clear to his listeners. 

That crank must be turned by hand, round and 
round all night, not too slow, not too fast. The dial 
on the machine must mark time with the clock on 
the wall. The light must flash once every minute 
until daybreak. He would do as much of the labor 
as he could, but the wife and the two older girls must 
help him. Nataline could go to bed. 

At this Nataline's short upper lip trembled. She 
rubbed her eyes with the sleeve of her dress, and 
began to weep silently. 

"What is the matter with you?" said her mother; 
"bad child, have you fear to sleep alone? A big girl 
like you !" 

"No," she sobbed, "I have no fear, but I want 
some of the fun." 



The Keeper of the Light 91 

''Fun!^' growled her father. ''What fun? She 
calls this fun !" He looked at her for a moment, as 
she stood there, half-defiant, half-despondent, with 
her red mouth quivering and her big brown eyes 
sparkling fire; then he burst into a hearty laugh. 

*'Come here, my little wild-cat,'* he said, drawing 
her to him and kissing her; "you are a good girl after 
all. I suppose you think this light is part yours, 
eh?" 

The girl nodded. 

''Well! You shall have your share, fun and all. 
You shall make the tea for us and bring us some- 
thing to eat. Perhaps when Alma and 'Zilda fatigue 
themselves they will permit a few turns of the crank 
to you. Are you content? Run now and boil the 
kettle." 

It was a very long night. No matter how easily a 
handle turns, after a certain number of revolutions 
there is a stiffness about it. The stiffness is not in 
the handle, but in the hand that pushes it. 

Round and round, evenly, steadily, minute after 
minute, hour after hour, shoving out, drawing in, cir- 
cle after circle, no swerving, no stopping, no varying 
the motion, turn after turn — fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty- 
seven — what's the use of counting ? Watch the dial ; 
go to sleep — no ! for God's sake, no sleep ! But how 
hard it is to keep awake ! How heavy the arm grows, 
how stifHy the muscles move, how the will creaks and 
groans ! It is not easy for a human being to become 
part of a machine. 

Fortin himself took the longest spell at the crank, 
of course. He went at his work with a rigid courage. 
His red-hot anger had cooled down into a shape that 



92 Stories 

was like a bar of forged steel. He meant to make 
that light revolve if it killed him to do it. He was 
the captain of a company that had run into an am- 
buscade. He was going to fight his way through if 
he had to fight alone. 

The wife and the two older girls followed him 
blindly and bravely, in the habit of sheer obedience. 
They did not quite understand the meaning of the 
task, the honor of victory, the shame of defeat. 
But Fortin said it must be done, and he knew best. 
So they took their places in turn, as he grew weary, 
and kept the light flashing. 

And Nataline — well, there is no way of describ- 
ing what Nataline did, except to say that she played 
the fife. 

She felt the contest just as her father did, not as 
deeply, perhaps, but in the same spirit. She went 
into the fight with darkness like a little soldier. 
And she played the fife. 

When she came up from the kitchen with the 
smoking pail of tea, she rapped on the door and 
called out to know whether the Windigo was at 
home to-night. 

She ran in and out of the place like a squirrel. 
She looked up a t the light and laughed. Then she 
ran in and reported. *'He winks,'' she said, '*old 
one-eye winks beautifully. K^ep him going. My 
turn now!" 

She refused to be put off" with a shorter spell than 
the other girls. ''No,'' she cried, ''I can do it as 
well as you. You think you are so much older. 
Well, what of that? The light is part mine; father 
said so. Let me turn." 



The Keeper of the Light 93 

When the first glimmer of the little day came 
shivering along the eastern horizon, Nataline was 
at the crank. The mother and the two older girls 
were half-asleep. Baptiste stepped out to look at 
the sky. ''Come/* he cried, returning. '*We can 
stop now, it is growing gray in the east, almost 
morning.'' 

''But not yet," said Nataline; "we must wait for 
the first red. A few more turns. Let's finish it up 
with a song." 

She shook her head and piped up the refrain of 
an old Canadian ballad. And to that cheerful music 
the first night's battle was carried through to vic- 
tory. 

The next day Fortin spent two hours in trying to 
repair the clock-work. It was of no use. The broken 
part was indispensable and could not be replaced. 

At noon he went over to the mainland to tell of 
the disaster, and perhaps to find out if any hostile 
hand was responsible for it. He found out nothing. 
Everyone denied all knowledge of the accident. 
Perhaps there was a flaw in the wheel; perhaps it 
had broken itself. That was possible. Fortin could 
not deny it; but the thing that hurt him most was 
that he got so little sympathy. Nobody seemed to 
care whether the light was kept burning or not. 
When he told them how the machine had been turned 
all night by hand, they were astonished. "Thunder ! " 
they cried, "you must have had great misery to do 
that." But that he proposed to go on doing it for a 
month longer, until December tenth, and to begin 
again on April first, and go on turning the light by 
hand for three or four weeks more until the supply- 



94 Stories 

boat came down and brought the necessary tools to 
repair the machine — such an idea as this went be- 
yond their horizon. 

"But you are crazy, Baptiste/* they said; '*you 
can never do it; you are not capable/' 

''I would be crazy/* he answered, **if I did not see 
what I must do. That light is my charge. In all 
the world there is nothing else so great as that for 
me and for my family — you understand? For us it 
is the chief thing. It is my Ten Commandments. 
I shall keep it." 

After a while he continued: **I want someone to 
help me with the work on the island. We must be 
up all the nights now. By day we must get some 
sleep. I want another man or a strong boy. Is 
there any who will come? The Government will 
pay. Or if not, I will pay, myself/' 

This appeal was of no avail until Thibault's young- 
est son, Marcel, a well-grown boy of sixteen, volun- 
teered. 

So the little Marcel was enlisted in the crew on 
the island. For thirty nights those six people — a 
man, and a boy, and four women (Nataline was not 
going to submit to any distinctions on the score of 
age, you may be sure) — for a full month they turned 
their flashing lantern by hand from dusk to day- 
break. 

The fog, the frost, the hail, the snow beleaguered 
their tower. Hunger and cold, sleeplessness and 
weariness, pain and discouragement, held rendez- 
vous in that dismal, cramped little room. Many a 
night Nataline's fife of fun played a feeble, wheezy 
note. But it played. And the crank went round. 



The Keeper of the Light 95 

And every bit of glass in the lantern was as clear as 
polished crystal. And the big lamp was full of oil. 
And the great eye of the friendly giant winked with- 
out ceasing, through fierce storm and placid moon- 
light. 

When the tenth of December came, the light went 
to sleep for the winter, and the keepers took their 
way across the ice to the mainland. They had won 
the battle, not only on the island, fighting against 
the elements, but also at Dead Men's Point, against 
public opinion. The inhabitants began to under- 
stand that the light-house meant something— a law, 
an order, a principle. 

When the time arrived to kindle the light again 
in the spring, Fortin could have had anyone that 
he wanted to help him. But no; he chose the little 
Marcel again; the boy wanted to go, and he had 
earned the right. Besides, he and Nataline had 
struck up a close friendship on the island, cemented 
during the winter by various hunting excursions 
after hares and ptarmigan. Marcel was a skilful 
setter of snares. But Nataline was not content until 
she had won consent to borrow her father's rifle. 
They hunted in partnership. One day they had 
shot a fox. That is, Nataline had shot it, though 
Marcel had seen it first and tracked it. Now they 
wanted to try for a seal on the point of the island 
when the ice went out. It was quite essential that 
Marcel should go. 

But there was not much play in the spring session 
with the light on the island. It was a bitter job. 
December had been lamb-like compared with April. 
First, the southeast wind kept the ice driving in 



96 Stories 

along the shore. Then the northwest wind came 
hurtling down from the Arctic wilderness like a pack 
of wolves. There was a snow-storm of four days and 
nights that made the whole world — earth and sky and 
sea — look like a crazy white chaos. And through it 
all, that weary, dogged crank must be kept turning 
— turning from dark to daylight. 

It seemed as if the supply-boat would never come. 
At last they saw it, one fair afternoon, April the 
twenty-ninth, creeping slowly down the coast. They 
were just getting ready for another night's work. 

Fortin ran out of the tower, took off his hat, and 
began to say his prayers. The wife and the two 
elder girls stood in the kitchen door, crossing them- 
selves, with tears in their eyes. Marcel and Nata- 
line were coming up from the point of the island, 
where they had been watching for their seal. She 
was singing. When she saw the boat she stopped 
short for a minute. 

*'Well,'' she said, *'they find us awake. And if 
they don't come faster than that we'll have another 
chance to show them how we make the light wink, 
eh?" 

Then she went on with her song. 

Ill 

Nataline grew up like a young birch-tree — stately 
and strong, good to look at. She was beautiful in 
her place; she fitted it exactly. Her bronzed face 
with an under- tinge of red; her low, black eyebrows; 
her clear eyes like the brown waters of a woodland 
stream; her dark, curly hair with little tendrils al- 



The Keeper of the Light 97 

ways blowing loose around the pillar of her neck; 
her broad breast and sloping shoulders; her firm, 
fearless step; her voice, rich and vibrant; her straight, 
steady looks — but there, who can describe a thing 
like that? I tell you she was a girl to love out-of- 
doors. 

There was nothing that she could not do. She 
could cook; she could swing an axe; she could paddle 
a canoe; she could fish; she could shoot; and, best of 
all, she could run the light-house. Her father's devo- 
tion to it had gone into her blood. It was the centre 
of her life, her law of God. There was nothing about 
it that she did not understand and love. She lived 
by it and for it. 

There were no more accidents to the clock-work 
after the first one was repaired. It ran on regularly, 
year after year. 

Alma and Azilda were married and went away to 
live, one on the South Shore, the other at Quebec. 
Nataline was her father's right-hand man. As the 
rheumatism took hold of him and lamed his shoul- 
ders and wrists, more and more of the work fell upon 
her. She was proud of it. 

At last it came to pass, one day in January, that 
Baptiste died. The men dug through the snow be- 
hind the tiny chapel at Dead Men's Point, and made 
a grave for him, and the young priest of the mission 
read the funeral service over it. 

It went without saying that Nataline was to be 
the keeper of the light, at least until the supply- 
boat came down again in the spring and orders ar- 
rived from the Government in Quebec. Why not? 
She was a woman, it is true. But if a woman can 



98 Stories 

do a thing as well as a man, why should she not do it ? 
Besides, Nataline could do this particular thing much 
better than any man on the Point. Everybody ap- 
proved of her as the heir of her father, especially 
young Marcel Thibault. 

What? 

Yes, of course. You could not help guessing it. 
He was Nataline's lover. They were to be married 
the next summer. They sat together in the best 
room, while the old mother was rocking to and fro 
and knitting beside the kitchen stove, and talked 
of what they were going to do. Their talk was 
mainly of the future, because they were young, and 
of the light, because Nataline's life belonged to it. 

That winter was a bad one on the North Shore, 
and particularly at Dead Men's Point. It was ter- 
ribly bad. The summer before, the fishing had been 
almost a dead failure. In June a wild storm had 
smashed all the salmon nets and swept most of them 
away. In 'July they could find no caplin for bait for 
the cod-fishing, and in August and September they 
could find no cod. The few bushels of potatoes that 
some of the inhabitants had planted rotted in the 
ground. The people at the Point went into the win- 
ter short of money and very short of food. 

There were some supplies at the store, pork and 
flour and molasses, and they could run through the 
year on credit and pay their debts the following 
summer if the fish came back. But this resource 
also failed them. In the last week of January the 
store caught fire and burned up. Nothing was saved. 
The only hope now was the seal-hunting in February 
and March and April. That at least would bring 



f 




"I am the keeper of the light.' 



The Keeper of the Light 99 

them meat and oil enough to keep them from star- 
vation. 

But this hope failed, too. The winds blew strong 
from the north and west, driving the ice far out into 
the gulf. The chase was long and perilous. The 
seals were few and wild. Less than a dozen were 
killed in all. By the last week in March Dead Men*s 
Point stood face to face with famine. 

Then it was that old Thibault had an idea. 

'* There is sperm oil on the Island of Birds,** said 
he, '*in the light-house, plenty of it, gallons of it. 
It is not very good to taste, perhaps, but what of 
that? It will keep life in the body. The Esqui- 
maux drink it in the north, often. We must take 
the oil of the light-house to keep us from starving 
until the supply-boat comes down.*' 

'*But how shall we get it?** asked the others. 
"It is locked up. Nataline Fortin has the key. 
Will she give it?** 

'*Give it?** growled Thibault. "Name of a name ! 
of course she will give it. She must. Is not a life, 
the life of all of us, more than a light?'* 

A self-appointed committee of three, with Thi- 
bault at the head, waited upon Nataline without de- 
lay, told her their plan, and asked for the key. She 
thought it over silently for a few minutes, and then 
refused point-blank. 

"No,** she said, "I will not give the key. That 
oil is for the lamp. If you take it the lamp will not 
be lighted on the first of April; it will not be burning 
when the supply-boat comes. For me, that would 
be shame, disgrace, worse than death. I am the 
keeper of the light. You shall not have the oil.** 



loo Stories 

They argued with her, pleaded with her, tried to 
browbeat her. She was a rock. Her round under- 
jaw was set like a steel trap. Her lips straightened 
into a white line. Her eyebrows drew together, and 
her eyes grew black. 

**No,'* she cried, ''I tell you no, no, a thousand 
times no. All in this house I will share with you. 
But not one drop of what belongs to the light ! 
Never!" 

Later in the afternoon the priest came to see her; 
a thin, pale young man, bent with the hardships of 
his life, and with sad dreams in his sunken eyes. 
He talked with her very gently and kindly. 

*' Think well, my daughter; think seriously what 
you do. Is it not our first duty to save human life ? 
Surely that must be according to the will of God. 
Will you refuse to obey it?'' 

Nataline was trembling a little now. Her brows 
were unlocked. The tears stood in her eyes and 
ran down her cheeks. She was twisting her hands 
together. 

**My father," she answered, *'I desire to do the 
will of God. But how shall I know it? Is it not 
His first command that we should serve Him faith- 
fully in the duty which He has given us? He gave 
me this light to keep. My father kept it. He is 
dead. If I am unfaithful what will he say to me? 
Besides, the supply-boat is coming soon — I have 
thought of this — when it comes it will bring food. 
But if the light is out, the boat may be lost. That 
would be the punishment for my sin. No, we must 
trust God. He will keep the people. I will keep 
the light." 



The Keeper of the Light loi 

The priest looked at her long and steadily. A 
glow came into his face. He put his hand on her 
shoulder. ''You shall follow your conscience," he 
said quietly. ''Peace be with you, Nataline.'' 

That evening just at dark Marcel came. She let 
him take her in his arms and kiss her. She felt like 
a little child, tired and weak. 

"Well,'* he whispered, "you have done bravely, 
sweetheart. You were right not to give the key. 
That would have been a shame to you. But it is 
all settled now. They will have the oil without your 
fault. To-night they are going out to the light- 
house to break in and take what they want. You 
need not know. There will be no blame *' 

She straightened in his arms as if an electric shock 
had passed through her. She sprang back, blazing 
with anger. 

"What?" she cried, "me a thief by roundabout — 
with my hand behind my back and my eyes shut? 
Never. Do you think I care only for the blame ? I 
tell you that is nothing. My light shall not be 
robbed, never, never!" 

She came close to him and took him by the shoul- 
ders. Their eyes were on a level. He was a strong 
man, but she was the stronger then. 

"Marcel Thibault," she said, "do you love me?" 

" My faith," he gasped, " I do. You know I do." 

"Then listen," she continued; "this is what you 
are going to do. You are going down to the shore 
at once to make ready the big canoe. I am going 
to get food enough to last us for the month. It will 
be a hard pinch, but it will do. Then we are going 
out to the island to-night, in less than an hour. Day 



I02 Stories 

after to-morrow is the first of April. Then we shall 
light the lantern, and it shall burn every night until 
the boat comes down. You hear? Now go: and be 
quick: and bring your gun.*' 



IV 

They pushed oflf in the black darkness, among the 
fragments of ice that lay along the shore. They 
crossed the strait in silence, and hid their canoe 
among the rocks on the island. They carried their 
stuff up to the house and locked it in the kitchen. 
Then they unlocked the tower, and went in, Marcel 
with his shot-gun, and Nataline with her father's old 
rifle. They fastened the door again, and bolted it, 
and sat down in the dark to wait. 

Presently they heard the grating of the prow of 
the barge on the stones below, the steps of men stum- 
bling up the steep path, and voices mingled in con- 
fused talk. The glimmer of a couple of lanterns 
went bobbing in and out among the rocks and bushes. 
There was a little crowd of eight or ten men, and 
they came on carelessly, chattering and laughing. 
Three of them carried axes, and three others a heavy 
log of wood which they had picked up on their 
way. 

''The log is better than the axes," said one; **take 
it in your hands this way, two of you on one side, 
another on the opposite side in the middle. Then 
swing it back and forward and let it go. The door 
will come down, I tell you, like a sheet of paper. 
But wait till I give the word, then swing hard. One 
—two '' 



The Keeper of the Light 103 

"Stop!" cried Nataline, throwing open the Httle 
window. ''If you dare to touch that door, I shoot." 

She thrust out the barrel of the rifle, and Marcel's 
shot-gun appeared beside it. The old rifle was not 
loaded, but who knew that? Besides, both barrels 
of the shot-gun were full. 

There was amazement in the crowd outside the 
tower, and consternation, and then anger. 

The gang muttered, cursed, threatened, looked at 
the guns, and went off to their boat. 

''It is murder that you will do," one of them 
called out; ''you are a murderess, you Mademoiselle 
Fortin! you cause the people to die of hunger!" 

"Not I," she answered; "that is as the good God 
pleases. No matter. The light shall burn." 

The next day they put the light in order, and the 
following night they kindled it. They still feared 
another attack from the mainland, and thought it 
needful that one of them should be on guard all the 
time, though the machine itself was working beau- 
tifully and needed little watching. Nataline took 
the night duty; it was her own choice; she loved the 
charge of the lamp. Marcel was on duty through 
the day. They were together for three or four 
hours in the morning and in the evening. 

It was not a desperate vigil like that affair with 
the broken clock-work eight years before. There 
was no weary turning of the crank. There was just 
enough work to do about the house and the tower 
to keep them busy. The weather was fair. The 
worst thing was the short supply of food. But 
though they were hungry, they were not starving. 
And Nataline still played the fife. She jested, she 



I04 Stories 

sang, she told long falr>^ stories while they sat in the 
kitchen. Marcel admitted that it was not at all a 
bad arrangement. 

On the afternoon of the twenty-seventh of April 
the clouds came down from the north, not a long 
furious tempest, but a brief, sharp storm, with con- 
siderable wind and a whirling, blinding fall of April 
snow. It was a bad night for boats at sea, confusing, 
bewildering, a night when the light-house had to do 
its best. Nataline was in the tower all night, tend- 
ing the lamp, watching the clock-work. Once it 
seemed to her that the lantern was so covered with 
snow that light could not shine through. She got 
her long brush and scraped the snow away. It was 
cold work, but she gloried in it. The bright eye of 
the tower, winking, winking steadily through the 
storm, seemed to be the sign of her power in the world. 
It was hers. She kept it shining. 

When morning came the wind was still blowing 
fitfully offshore, but the snow had almost ceased. 
Nataline stopped the clock-work, and was just climb- 
ing up into the lantern to put out the lamp, when 
Marcel's voice hailed her. 

''Come down, Nataline, come down quick. Make 
haste!" 

She turned and hurried out, not knowing what 
was to come; perhaps a message of trouble from the 
mainland, perhaps a new assault on the light-house. 

As she came out of the tower, her brown eyes 
heavy from the night-watch, her dark face pale from 
the cold, she saw Marcel standing on the rocky knoll 
beside the house and pointing shoreward. 

She ran up beside him and looked. There, in the 



The Keeper of the Light 105 

deep water between the island and the point, lay the 
supply-boat, rocking quietly on the waves. 

It flashed upon her in a moment what it meant — 
the end of her fight, relief for the village, victory ! 
And the light that had guided the little ship safe 
through the stormy night into the harbor was hers. 

She turned and looked up at the lamp, still burn- 
ing. 

''I kept you!'* she cried. 

Then she turned to Marcel; the color rose quickly 
in her cheeks, the light sparkled in her eyes; she 
smiled, and held out both her hands, whispering, 
''Now you shall keep me !'' 

There was a fine wedding on the last day of April, 
and from that time the island took its new name — 
the Isle of the Wise Virgin. 



THE FIRST CHRISTMAS-TREE 

I 

The day before Christmas, in the year of our 
Lord 724. A Httle company of pilgrims, less than 
a score of men, were travelling slowly northward 
through the wide forests that rolled over the hills 
of central Germany. At the head of the band 
marched Winfried of England, whose name in the 
Roman tongue was Boniface, and whom men called 
the Apostle of Germany. A great preacher; a won- 
derful scholar; but, more than all, a daring traveller, 
a venturesome pilgrim, a priest of romance. 

He had left his home and his fair estate in Wes- 
sex; he would not stay in the rich monastery of 
Nutescelle, even though they had chosen him as the 
abbot; he had refused a bishopric at the court of 
King Karl. Nothing would content him but to go 
out into the wild woods and preach to the heathen. 

Through the forests of Hesse and Thuringia, and 
along the borders of Saxony, he had wandered for 
years, with a handful of companions, sleeping under 
the trees, crossing mountains and marshes, now here, 
now there, never satisfied with ease and comfort, 
always in love with hardship and danger. 

What a man he was ! Fair and slight, but straight 
as a spear and strong as an oaken staff. His face 
was still young; the smooth skin was bronzed by 
wind and sun. His gray eyes, clear and kind, flashed 
like fire when he spoke of his adventures, and of the 

106 



The First Christmas-Tree 107 

evil deeds of the false priests with whom he con- 
tended. 

He was now clad in a tunic of fur, with his long 
black robe girt high above his waist, so that it might 
not hinder his stride. His hunter's boots were 
crusted with snow. Drops of ice sparkled like jewels 
along the thongs that bound his legs. There were 
no other ornaments of his dress except the bishop's 
cross hanging on his breast, and the silver clasp that 
fastened his cloak about his neck. He carried a 
strong, tall staff in his hand, fashioned at the top 
into the form of a cross. 

Close beside him, keeping step like a familiar com- 
rade, was young Prince Gregor. Long marches 
through the wilderness had stretched his legs and 
broadened his back, and made a man of him in stature 
as well as in spirit. His jacket and cap were of wolf- 
skin, and on his shoulder he carried an axe, with 
broad, shining blade. He was a mighty woodsman 
now, and could make a spray of chips fly around him 
as he hewed his way through the trunk of a pine-tree. 

Behind these leaders followed a pair of teamsters, 
guiding a rude sledge, loaded with food and the 
equipage of the camp, and drawn by two big, shaggy 
horses, blowing thick clouds of steam from their 
frosty nostrils. Tiny icicles hung from the hairs on 
their lips. Their flanks were smoking. They sank 
above the fetlocks at every step in the soft snow. 

Last of all came the rear guard, armed with bows 
and javelins. It was no child's play, in those days, 
to cross Europe afoot. 

The weird woodland, sombre and illimitable, cov- 
ered hill and vale, table-land and mountain-peak. 



io8 Stories 

There were wide moors where the wolves hunted in 
packs as if the devil drove them, and tangled thickets 
where the lynx and the boar made their lairs. Fierce 
bears lurked among the rocky passes, and had not 
yet learned to fear the face of man. The gloomy 
recesses of the forest gave shelter to inhabitants who 
were still more cruel and dangerous than beasts of 
prey — outlaws and sturdy robbers and mad were- 
wolves and bands of wandering pillagers. 

The travellers were surrounded by an ocean of 
trees, so vast, so full of endless billows, that it seemed 
to be pressing on every side to overwhelm them. 
Gnarled oaks, w^ith branches twisted and knotted as 
if in rage, rose in groves like tidal waves. Smooth 
forests of beech-trees, round and gray, swept over 
the knolls and slopes of land in a mighty ground- 
swell. But most of all, the multitude of pines and 
firs, innumerable and monotonous, with straight, 
stark trunks, and branches woven together in an 
unbroken flood of darkest green, crowded through 
the valleys and over the hills, rising on the highest 
ridges into ragged crests, like the foaming edge of 
breakers. 

Through this sea of shadows ran a narrow stream 
of shining whiteness — an ancient Roman road, cov- 
ered with snow. It was as if some great ship had 
ploughed through the green ocean long ago, and left 
behind it a thick, smooth wake of foam. Along this 
open track the travellers held their way — heavily, for 
the drifts were deep; warily, for the hard winter had 
driven many packs of wolves down from the moors. 

The steps of the pilgrims were noiseless; but the 
sledges creaked over the dry snow, and the panting 



The First Christmas-Tree 109 

of the horses throbbed through the still air. The 
pale-blue shadows on the western side of the road 
grew longer. The sun, declining through its shallow 
arch, dropped behind the tree-tops. Darkness fol- 
lowed swiftly, as if it had been a bird of prey waiting 
for this sign to swoop down upon the world. 

** Father,'* said Gregor to the leader, "surely this 
day's march is done. It is time to rest, and eat, and 
sleep. If we press onward now, we cannot see our 
steps." 

Winfried laughed. ''Nay, my son Gregor," said 
he, "I am not minded to spare thy legs or mine, until 
we come farther on our way, and do what must be 
done this night. Draw thy belt tighter, my son, and 
hew me out this tree that is fallen across the road, 
for our camp-ground is not here." 

The youth obeyed; two of the foresters sprang to 
help him; and while the soft fir- wood yielded to the 
stroke of the axes, and the snow flew from the bend- 
ing branches, Winfried turned and spoke to his fol- 
lowers in a cheerful voice, that refreshed them like 
wine. 

''Courage, brothers, and forward yet a little ! The 
moon will light us presently, and the path is plain. 
Well know I that the journey is weary; and my own 
heart wearies also for the home in England, where 
those I love are keeping feast this Christmas-eve. 
But we have work to do before we feast to-night. 
For this is the Yule-tide, and the heathen people of 
the forest are gathered at the thunder-oak of Geismar 
to worship their god, Thor. Strange things will be 
seen there, and deeds which make the soul black. 
But we are sent to lighten their darkness; and we 



no Stories 

will teach our kinsmen to keep a Christmas with us 
such as the woodland has never known. Forward, 
then, and stiffen up the feeble knees!** 

A murmur of assent came from the men. Even 
the horses seemed to take fresh heart. They flat- 
tened their backs to draw the heavy loads, and blew 
the frost from their nostrils as they pushed ahead. 

The night grew broader and less oppressive. A 
gate of brightness was opened secretly somewhere in 
the sky. Higher and higher swelled the clear moon- 
flood, until it poured over the eastern wall of forest 
into the road. A drove of wolves howled faintly in 
the distance, but they were receding, and the sound 
soon died away. The stars sparkled merrily through 
the stringent air; the small, round moon shone like 
silver; little breaths of dreaming wind wandered 
across the pointed fir-tops, as the pilgrims toiled 
bravely onward, following their clew of light through 
a labyrinth of darkness. 

After a while the road began to open out a little. 
There were spaces of meadow-land, fringed with 
alders, behind which a boisterous river ran clashing 
through spears of ice. 

Then the road plunged again into a dense thicket, 
traversed it, and climbing to the left, emerged sud- 
denly upon a glade, round and level except at the 
northern side, where a hillock was crowned with a 
huge oak-tree. It towered above the heath, a giant 
with contorted arms, beckoning to the host of lesser 
trees. '^Here,*' cried Winfried, as his eyes flashed 
and his hand lifted his heavy staff, '*here is the 
Thunder-oak ; and here the cross of Christ shall break 
the hammer of the false god Thor.'* 




L 



The fields around lay bare to the moon. 



The First Christmas-Tree iii 



II 

Withered leaves still clung to the branches of the 
oak: torn and faded banners of the departed sum- 
mer. The bright crimson of autumn had long since 
disappeared, bleached away by the storms and the 
cold. But to-night these tattered remnants of glory 
were red again: ancient blood-stains against the dark- 
blue sky. For an immense fire had been kindled in 
front of the tree. Tongues of ruddy flame, fountains 
of ruby sparks, ascended through the spreading limbs 
and flung a fierce illumination upward and around. 
The pale, pure moonlight that bathed the surround- 
ing forests was quenched and eclipsed here. Not a 
beam of it sifted through the branches of the oak. 
It stood like a pillar of cloud between the still light 
of heaven and the crackling, flashing fire of earth. 

But the fire itself was invisible to Winfried and 
his companions. A great throng of people were gath- 
ered around it in a half-circle, their backs to the open 
glade, their faces toward the oak. Seen against that 
glowing background, it was but the silhouette of a 
crowd, vague, black, formless, mysterious. 

The travellers paused for a moment at the edge 
of the thicket, and took counsel together. 

'*It is the assembly of the tribe,*' said one of the 
foresters, '*the great night of the council. I heard 
of it three days ago, as we passed through one of the 
villages. All who swear by the old gods have been 
summoned. They will sacrifice a steed to the god 
of war, and drink blood, and eat horse-flesh to make 
them strong. It will be at the peril of our lives if 



112 Stories 

we approach them. At least we must hide the cross, 
if we would escape death." 

''Hide me no cross," cried Winfried, lifting his 
staff, ''for I have come to show it, and to make these 
blind folk see its power. There is more to be done 
here to-night than the slaying of a steed, and a greater 
evil to be stayed than the shameful eating of meat 
sacrificed to idols. I have seen it in a dream. Here 
the cross must stand and be our rede." 

At his command the sledge was left in the border 
of the wood, with two of the men to guard it, and 
the rest of the company moved forward across the 
open ground. They approached unnoticed, for all 
the multitude were looking intently toward the fire 
at the foot of the oak. 

Then Winfried's voice rang out, *'Hail, ye sons of 
the forest ! A stranger claims the warmth of your 
fire in the winter night." 

Swiftly, and as with a single motion, a thousand 
eyes were bent upon the speaker. The semicircle 
opened silently in the middle; Winfried entered with 
his followers; it closed again behind them. 

Then, as they looked round the curving ranks, 
they saw that the hue of the assemblage was not 
black, but white — dazzling, radiant, solemn. White, 
the robes of the women clustered together at the 
points of the wide crescent; white, the glittering 
byrnies of the warriors standing in close ranks; white, 
the fur mantles of the aged men who held the cen- 
tral place in the circle; white, with the shimmer of 
silver ornaments and the purity of lamb's-wool, the 
raiment of a little group of children who stood close 
by the fire; white, with awe and fear, the faces of all 



The First Christmas-Tree 113 

who looked at them; and over all the flickering, 
dancing radiance of the flames played and glimmered 
like a faint, vanishing tinge of blood on snow. 

The only figure untouched by the glow was the 
old priest, Hunrad, with his long, spectral robe, flow- 
ing hair and beard, and dead-pale face, who stood 
with his back to the fire and advanced slowly to 
meet the strangers. 

''Who are you? Whence come you, and what 
seek you here?" 

''Your kinsman am I, of the German brotherhood,*' 
answered Winfried, "and from England, beyond the 
sea, have I come to bring you a greeting from that 
land, and a message from the All-Father, whose ser- 
vant I am." 

"Welcome, then," said Hunrad, "welcome, kins- 
man, and be silent; for what passes here is too high 
to wait, and must be done before the moon crosses 
the middle heaven, unless, indeed, thou hast some 
sign or token from the gods. Canst thou work 
miracles?" 

The question came sharply, as if a sudden gleam 
of hope had flashed through the tangle of the old 
priest's mind. But Winfried's voice sank lower and 
a cloud of disappointment passed over his face as 
he replied: "Nay, miracles have I never wrought, 
though I have heard of many; but the All-Father 
has given no power to my hands save such as belongs 
to common man." 

"Stand still, then, thou common man," said Hun- 
rad scornfully, "and behold what the gods have 
called us hither to do. This night is the death-night 
of the sun-god, Baldur the Beautiful, beloved of gods 



114 Stories 

and men. This night is the hour of darkness and 
the power of winter, of sacrifice and mighty fear. 
This night the great Thor, the god of thunder and 
war, to whom this oak is sacred, is grieved for the 
death of Baldur, and angry with this people because 
they have forsaken his worship. Long is it since an 
offering has been laid upon his altar, long since the 
roots of his holy tree have been fed with blood. 
Therefore its leaves have withered before the time, 
and its boughs are heavy with death. Therefore 
the Slavs and the Wends have beaten us in battle. 
Therefore the harvests have failed, and the wolf- 
hordes have ravaged the folds, and the strength has 
departed from the bow, and the wood of the spear 
has broken, and the wild boar has slain the hunts- 
man. Therefore the plague has fallen on our dwell- 
ings, and the dead are more than the living in all our 
villages. Answer me, ye people, are not these things 
true?" 

A hoarse sound of approval ran through the circle. 
A chant, in which the voices of the men and women 
blended, like the shrill wind in the pine-trees above 
the rumbling thunder of a waterfall, rose and fell in 
rude cadences. 

O Thor, the Thunderer, 
Mighty and merciless, 
Spare us from smiting ! 
Heave not thy hammer, 
Angry, against us; 
Plague not thy people. 
Take from our treasure 
Richest of ransom. 
Silver we send thee, 
Jewels and javelins, 



The First Christmas-Tree 115 

Goodliest garments, 
All our possessions, 
Priceless, we proffer. 
Sheep will we slaughter. 
Steeds will we sacrifice; 
Bright blood shall bathe thee, 
O tree of Thunder, 
Life-floods shall lave thee. 
Strong wood of wonder. 
Mighty, have mercy, 
Smite us no more, 
Spare us and save us, 
Spare us, Thor! Thor! 

With two great shouts the song ended, and a still- 
ness followed so intense that the crackling of the fire 
was heard distinctly. The old priest stood silent for 
a moment. His shaggy brows swept down over his 
eyes like ashes quenching flame. Then he lifted his 
face and spoke. 

'*None of these things will please the god. More 
costly is the offering that shall cleanse your sin, more 
precious the crimson dew that shall send new life 
into this holy tree of blood. Thor claims your dear- 
est and your noblest gift." 

Hunrad moved nearer to the group of children 
who stood watching the fire and the swarms of spark- 
serpents darting upward. They had heeded none of 
the priest's words, and did not notice now that he 
approached them, so eager were they to see which 
fiery snake would go highest among the oak branches. 
Foremost among them, and most intent on the pretty 
game, was a boy like a sunbeam, slender and quick, 
with blithe brown eyes and laughing lips. The 
priest's hand was laid upon his shoulder. The boy 
turned and looked up in his face. 



ii6 Stories 

''Here/' said the old man, with his voice vibrating 
as when a thick rope is strained by a ship swinging 
from her moorings, ''here is the chosen one, the 
eldest son of the chief, the darling of the people. 
Hearken, Bernhard, wilt thou go to Valhalla, where 
the heroes dwell with the gods, to bear a message to 
Thor?" 

The boy answered, swift and clear: 

"Yes, priest, I will go if my father bids me. Is it 
far away? Shall I run quickly? Must I take my 
bow and arrows for the wolves?" 

The boy's father, the chieftain Gundhar, standing 
among his bearded warriors, drew his breath deep, 
and leaned so heavily on the handle of his spear that 
the wood cracked. And his wife, Irma, bending 
forward from the ranks of women, pushed the golden 
hair from her forehead with one hand. The other 
dragged at the silver chain about her neck until the 
rough links pierced her flesh, and the red drops fell 
unheeded on her breast. 

A sigh passed through the crowd, like the murmur 
of the forest before the storm breaks. Yet no one 
spoke save Hunrad: 

"Yes, my prince, both bow and spear shalt thou 
have, for the way is long, and thou art a brave hunts- 
man. But in darkness thou must journey for a lit- 
tle space, and with eyes blindfolded. Fearest thou ?'' 

"Naught fear I,'' said the boy, "neither darkness, 
nor the great bear, nor the were-wolf. For I am 
Gundhar 's son, and the defender of my folk.'* 

Then the priest led the child in his raiment of 
lamb's-wool to a broad stone in front of the fire. He 
gave him his little bow tipped with silver, and his 



The First Christmas-Tree 117 

spear with shining head of steel. He bound the 
child's eyes with a white cloth, and bade him kneel 
beside the stone with his face to the east. Uncon- 
sciously the wide arc of spectators drew inward 
toward the centre. Winfried moved noiselessly until 
he stood close behind the priest. 

The old man stooped to lift a black hammer of 
stone from the ground — the sacred hammer of the 
god Thor. Summoning all the strength of his with- 
ered arms, he swung it high in the air. It poised for 
an instant above the child's fair head— then turned 
to fall. 

One keen cry shrilled out from where the women 
stood: '*Me! take me! not Bernhard!" 

The flight of the mother toward her child was 
swift as the falcon's swoop. But swifter still was 
the hand of the deliverer. 

Winfried's heavy staff thrust mightily against the 
hammer's handle as it fell. Sideways it glanced 
from the old man's grasp, and the black stone, strik- 
ing on the altar's edge, split in twain. A shout of 
awe and joy rolled along the living circle. The 
branches of the oak shivered. The flames leaped 
higher. As the shout died away the people saw the 
lady Irma, with her arms clasped round her child, 
and above them, on the altar-stone, Winfried, his 
face shining like the face of an angel. 

III 

A swift mountain-flood rolling down Its channel; a 
huge rock tumbling from the hill-side and falling in 
mid-stream: the baffled waters broken and confused, 



ii8 Stories 

pausing in their flow, dash high against the rock, 
foaming and murmuring, with divided impulse, un- 
certain whether to turn to the right or the left. 

Even so Winfried's bold deed fell into the midst of 
the thoughts and passions of the council. They 
were at a standstill. Anger and wonder, reverence 
and joy and confusion surged through the crowd. 
They knew not which way to move: to resent the in- 
trusion of the stranger as an insult to their gods, or 
to welcome him as the rescuer of their prince. 

The old priest crouched by the altar, silent. Con- 
flicting counsels troubled the air. Let the sacrifice go 
forward; the gods must be appeased. Nay, the boy 
must not die; bring the chieftain's best horse and 
slay it in his stead; it will be enough; the holy tree 
loves the blood of horses. Not so, there is a better 
counsel yet; seize the stranger whom the gods have 
led hither as a victim and make his life pay the for- 
feit of his daring. 

The withered leaves on the oak rustled and whis- 
pered overhead. The fire flared and sank again. 
The angry voices clashed against each other and fell 
like opposing waves. Then the chieftain Gundhar 
struck the earth with his spear and gave his de- 
cision. 

**A11 have spoken, but none are agreed. There 
is no voice of the council. Keep silence now, and 
let the stranger speak. His words shall give us 
judgment, whether he is to live or to die." 

Winfried lifted himself high upon the altar, drew 
a roll of parchment from his bosom, and began to 
read. 

*'A letter from the great Bishop of Rome, who sits 



The First Christmas-Tree 119 

on a golden throne, to the people of the forest, Hes- 
sians and Thuringians, Franks and Saxons." 

A murmur of awe ran through the crowd. 

Winfried went on to read the letter, translating it 
into the speech of the people. 

'*We have sent unto you our Brother Boniface, 
and appointed him your bishop, that he may teach 
you the only true faith, and baptize you, and lead 
you back from the ways of error to the path of salva- 
tion. Hearken to him in all things like a father. 
Bow your hearts to his teaching. He comes not for 
earthly gain, but for the gain of your souls. Depart 
from evil works. Worship not the false gods, for 
they are devils. Offer no more bloody sacrifices, nor 
eat the flesh of horses, but do as our Brother Boni- 
face commands you. Build a house for him that he 
may dwell among you, and a church where you may 
offer your prayers to the only living God, the Al- 
mighty King of Heaven.'' 

It was a splendid message: proud, strong, peaceful, 
loving. The dignity of the words imposed mightily 
upon the hearts of the people. They were quieted 
as men who have listened to a lofty strain of music- 

''Tell us, then,'' said Gundhar, ''what is the word 
that thou bringest to us from the Almighty ? What 
is thy counsel for the tribes of the woodland on this 
night of sacrifice?" 

"This is the word, and this is the counsel," an- 
swered Winfried. "Not a drop of blood shall fall 
to-night, save that which pity has drawn from the 
breast of your princess, in love for her child. Not a 
Hfe shall be blotted out in the darkness to-night; but 
the great shadow of the tree which hides you from 



I20 Stories 

the light of heaven shall be swept away. For this is 
the birthnight of the white Christ, son of the All- 
Father, and Saviour of mankind. Since He has 
come to earth the bloody sacrifice must cease. The 
dark Thor, on whom you vainly call, is dead. His 
power in the world is broken. Will you serve a 
helpless god? See, my brothers, you call this tree 
his oak. Does he dwell here? Does he protect 
it?" 

A troubled voice of assent rose from the throng. 
The people stirred uneasily. Women covered their 
eyes. Hunrad lifted his head and muttered hoarsely, 
'*Thor! take vengeance! Thor!'' 

Winfried beckoned to Gregor. ** Bring the axes, 
thine and one for me. Now, young woodsman, show 
thy craft ! The king-tree of the forest must fall, and 
swiftly, or all is lost !" 

The two men took their places facing each other, 
one on each side of the oak. Their cloaks were flung 
aside, their heads bare. Carefully they felt the 
ground with their feet, seeking a firm grip of the 
earth. Firmly they grasped the axe-helves and 
swung the shining blades. 

' * Tree-god ! ' ' cried Winf ri^ , ' * art thou angry ? 
Thus we smite thee !'' 

*^ Tree-god !'' answered Gregor, **art thou mighty? 
Thus we fight thee!'' 

Clang ! clang ! the alternate strokes beat time upon 
the hard, ringing wood. The axe-heads glittered in 
their rhythmic flight, like fierce eagles circling about 
their quarry. 

The broad flakes of wood flew from the deepening 
gashes in the lides of the oak. The huge trunk quiv- 



The First Christmas-Tree 121 

ered. There was a shuddering in the branches. 
Then the great wonder of Winfried's Hfe came to 
pass. 

Out of the stillness of the winter night a mighty 
rushing noise sounded overhead. 

Was it the ancient gods on their white battle- 
steeds, with their black hounds of wrath and their 
arrows of lightning, sweeping through the air to 
destroy their foes? 

A strong, whirling wind passed over the tree- 
tops. It gripped the oak by its branches and tore 
it from the roots. Backward it fell, like a ruined 
tower, groaning and crashing as it split asunder in 
four great pieces. 

Winfried let his axe drop, and bowed his head for 
a moment in the presence of almighty power. 

Then he turned to the people: '^Here is the tim- 
ber,'' he cried, ''already felled and split for your new 
building. On this spot shall rise a chapel to the 
true God and his servant St. Peter. 

*'And here,'' said he, as his eyes fell on a young 
fir-tree, standing straight and green, with its top 
pointing toward the stars, amid the divided ruins 
of the fallen oak, ''here is the living tree, with no 
stain of blood upon it, that shall be the sign of your 
new worship. See how it points to the sky. Call 
it the tree of the Christ-child. Take it up and carry 
it to the chieftain's hall. You shall go no more into 
the shadows of the forest to keep your feasts with 
secret rites of shame. You shall keep them at home, 
with laughter and songs and rites of love. The 
thunder-oak has fallen, and I think the day is com- 
ing when there shall not be a home in all Germany 



122 Stories 

where the children are not gathered around the green 
fir-tree to rejoice in the birthnight of Christ/' 

So they took the little fir from its place, and car- 
ried it in joyous procession to the edge of the glade, 
and laid it on the sledge. The horses tossed their 
heads and drew their load bravely, as if the new bur- 
den had made it lighter. 

When they came to the house of Gundhar, he 
bade them throw open the doors of the hall and set 
the tree in the midst of it. They kindled lights 
among the branches until it seemed to be tangled 
full of fire-flies. The children encircled it, wonder- 
ing, and the sweet odor of the balsam filled the house. 

Then Winfried stood beside the chair of Gundhar, 
on the dais at the end of the hall, and told the story 
of Bethlehem; of the babe in the manger, of the 
shepherds on the hills, of the host of angels and their 
midnight song. All the people listened, charmed 
into stillness. 

But the boy Bernhard, on Irma's knee, folded in 
her soft arms, grew restless as the story lengthened, 
and began to prattle softly at his mother's ear. 

''Mother,*' whispered the child, ''why did you cry 
out so loud when the priest was going to send me to 
Valhalla?" 

"Oh, hush, my child," answered the mother, and 
pressed him closer to her side. 

"Mother," whispered the boy again, laying his 
finger on the stains upon her breast, "see, your dress 
is red ! What are these stains ? Did someone hurt 
you?" 

The mother closed his mouth with a kiss. "Dear, 
be still, and listen !" 



The First Christmas-Tree 123 

The boy obeyed. His eyes were heavy with sleep. 
But he heard the last words of Winfried as he spoke 
of the angelic messengers, flying over the hills of 
Judea and singing as they flew. The child won- 
dered and dreamed and listened. Suddenly his face 
grew bright. He put his lips close to Irma's cheek 
again. 

'*0h, mother!'' he whispered very low, ''do not 
speak. Do you hear them? Those angels have 
come back again. They are singing now behind the 
tree." 

And some say that it was true; but some say that 
it was the pilgrims whom the child heard, singing 
their Christmas carol. 



THE HERO AND TIN SOLDIERS 

On December twenty-fifth, 1918, that little white 
house in the park was certainly the happiest dwell- 
ing in Calvinton. It was simply running over with 
Christmas. 

You see, there had come to it a most wonderful 
present, a surprise full of tears and laughter. Cap- 
tain Walter Mayne reached home on Christmas 
Eve. 

For a while they had thought that he would never 
come back at all. News had been received that he 
was grievously wounded in France — shot to pieces, 
in effect, leading his men near Chateau-Thierr3\ 
His life hung on the ragged edge of those wounds. 
But his wife Katharine always believed that he 
would pull through. So he did. But he was lacking 
a leg, his right arm was knocked out of commission 
for the present, and various other souvenirs de la 
grande guerre were inscribed upon his body. 

Then word arrived that he was coming on a trans- 
port, with other wounded, to be patched up in a 
hospital on Staten Island. So his wife Katharine 
smiled her way through innumerable entanglements 
of red tape and went to nurse him. Then she set 
her steady hand to pull all the wires necessary to 
get him discharged and sent home. Christmas was 
in her heart and she would not be denied. So it 
came to pass that the one-legged Hero was in his 
own house on the happy day, and joy was bubbling 
all around him. 

When the old Pastor entered, late in the after- 

124 



The Hero and Tin Soldiers 125 

noon, the Christmas-tree was twinkling with lights, 
the children swarming and buzzing all over the place, 
so that he was dazed for a moment. There were 
Walter's mother and his aunt and his sisters-in-law, 
boys and girls of various sizes, and a jubilant and 
entrancing baby. The Pastor took it all in, and was 
glad of it, but his mind was on the Hero. 

Katharine, who always understood everything, 
whispered softly: ^* Walter is waiting to see you. 
Doctor. He is in his study, just across the hall." 

Waiting ? Well, what can a man whose right leg 
has been cut off above the knee, and who has not 
yet been able to get an artificial one — what can he 
do but wait? 

The room was rather dimly lighted; brilliance is 
not good for the eyes of the wounded. Walter was 
in a long chair in the corner; his face was bronzed, 
drawn and lined a little by suffering; but steady and 
cheerful as ever, with the eager look which had made 
his students listen to him when he talked to them 
about English literature. 

''My dear Walter,'' said the Pastor, '*my dear 
boy, we are so glad to have you home with us again. 
We are very proud of you. You are our Hero." 

''Thank you," said Walter, "it is mighty good to 
be home again. But there is no hero business about 
it. I only did what all the other Americans who 
went over there did — fought my — excuse me, my 
best, against the beastly Germans." 

"But your leg," said the Pastor impulsively, "it 
is gone. Aren't you angry about that?" 

Walter was silent for a moment. Then he an- 
swered. 



126 Stories 

''No, I don't think angry is the right word. You 
remember that story about Nathan Hale in the 
Revolution — 'I only regret that I have but one life 
to give to my country/ Well, Tm glad that I had 
two legs to give for my country, and particularly 
glad that she only needed one of them/' 

"Tell me a bit about the fighting,'* said the Pas- 
tor, ''I want to know what it was like — the hero- 
touch — you understand?" 

''Not for me," said Walter, "and certainly not 
now. Later on I can tell you something, perhaps. 
But this is Christmas Day. And war? Well, Doc- 
tor, believe me, war is a horrible thing, full of grime 
and pain, madness, agony, hell — a thing that ought 
not to be. I have fought alongside of the other fel- 
lows to put an end to it, and now " 

The door swung open, and Sammy, the eldest son 
of the house, pranced in. 

"Look, Daddy," he cried, "see what Aunt Emily 
has sent me for Christmas — a big box of tin sol- 
diers!" 

Mayne smiled as the little boy carefully laid the 
box on his knee; but there was a shadow of pain in 
his eyes, and he closed them for a few seconds, as if 
his mind were going back, somewhere, far away. 
Then he spoke, tenderly, but with a grave voice. 

"That's fine, sonny — all those tin soldiers. But 
don't you think they ought to belong to me? You 
have lots of other toys, you know. Would you give 
the soldiers to me?" 

The child looked up at him, puzzled for a moment; 
then a flash of comprehension passed over his face, 
and he nodded valiantly. 



The Hero and Tin Soldiers 127 

'*Sure, Father/' he said, "You're the Captain. 
Keep the soldiers. I'll play with the other toys," 
and he skipped out of the room. 

Mayne's look followed him with love. Then he 
turned to the old Pastor and a strange expression 
came into his face, half whimsical and half grim. 

''Doctor," he said, ''will you do me a favor? 
Poke up that fire till it blazes. That's right. Now 
lay this box in the hottest part of the flames. That's 
right. It will soon be gone." 

The elder man did what was asked, with an air 
of slight bewilderment, as one humors the fancies of 
an invalid. He wondered whether Mayne's fever 
had quite left him. He watched the fire bulging 
the lid and catching round the edges of the box. 
Then he heard Mayne's voice behind him, speaking 
very quietly. 

*'If ever I find my little boy playing with tin sol- 
diers, I shall spank him well. No, that wouldn't be 
quite fair, would it? But I shall tell him why he 
must not do it, and / shall make him understand that 
it's an impossible thing,'' 

Then the old Pastor comprehended. There was 
no touch of fever. The one-legged Hero had come 
home from the wars completely well and sound in 
mind. So the two men sat together in love by the 
Christmas fire, and saw the tin soldiers melt away. 



THE KING'S HIGH WAY 

In the last remnant of Belgium, a corner yet un- 
conquered by the German horde, I saw a tall young 
man walking among the dunes, between the sodden 
lowland and the tumbling sea. 

The hills where he trod were of sand heaped high 
by the western winds; and the growth over them 
was wire-grass and thistles, bayberry and golden 
broom and stunted pine, with many humble wild 
flowers — things of no use, yet beautiful. 

The sky above was gray; thje northern sea was 
gray; the southern fields were hazy gray over green; 
the smoke of shells bursting in the air was gray. 
Gray was the skeleton of the ruined city in the dis- 
tance; gray were the shattered spires and walls of a 
dozen hamlets on the horizon; gray, the eyes of the 
young man who walked in faded blue uniform, in 
the remnant of Belgium. But there was an in- 
domitable light in his eyes, by which I knew that 
he was a King. 

*'Sir,'' I said, '*I am sure that you are his Majesty, 
the King of Belgium.'* 

He bowed, and a pleasant smile relaxed his tired 
face. 

"Pardon, monsieur,'' he answered, ''but you make 
the usual mistake in my title. If I were only 'the 
King of Belgium,' you see, I should have but a poor 
kingdom now — only this narrow strip of earth, per- 
haps four hundred square miles of debris, just a 

128 



The King^s High Way 129 

^pou stOy' a place to stand, enough to fight on, and 
if need be to die in.'* 

His hand swept around the half-circle of dull land- 
scape visible southward from the top of the loftiest 
dune, the Hooge Blikker. It was a land of slow- 
winding streams and straight canals and flat fields, 
with here and there a clump of woods or a slight rise 
of ground, but for the most part level and monotonous, 
a checker-board landscape — stretching away until 
the eyes rested on the low hills beyond Ypres. Now 
all the placid charm of Flemish fertility was gone 
from the land — it was scarred and marred and pitted. 
The shells and mines had torn holes in it; the trenches 
and barbed-wire entanglements spread over it like 
a network of scars and welts; the trees were smashed 
into kindling-wood; the farmhouses were heaps of 
charred bricks ; the shattered villages were like mouths 
full of broken teeth. As the King looked round at 
all this, his face darkened and the slight droop of 
his shoulders grew more marked. 

*^But, no,'' he said, turning to me again, ^^that is 
not my kingdom. My real title, monsieur, is King 
of the Belgians. It was for their honor, for their lib- 
erty, that I was willing to lose my land and risk my 
crown. While they live and hold true, I stand fast." 

Then ran swiftly through me the thought of how 
the little Belgian army had fought, how the Belgian 
people had suffered, rather than surrender the inde- 
pendence of their country to the barbarians. The 
German cannonade was roaring along the Yser a 
few miles away; the air trembled with the overload 
of sound; but between the peals of thunder I could 
hear the brave song of the skylark climbing his silver 



130 Stories 

stairway of music, undismayed, hopeful, unconquer- 
able. I remembered how the word of this quiet man 
beside whom I stood had been the inspiration and 
encouragement of his people through the fierce con- 
flict, the long agony: ^' I have faith in our destiny; a 
nation which defends itself does not perish; God will 
be with us in that just cause.'' 

'*Sir,'' I said, **you have a glorious kingdom which 
shall never be taken away. But as for your land, 
the fates have been against you. How will you ever 
get back to it? The Germans are strong as iron 
and they bar the way. Will you make a peace with 
them and take what they have so often offered you ?*' 

''Never," he answered calmly; "that is not the 
way home, it is the way to dishonor. When God 
brings me back, my army and my Queen are going 
with me to liberate our people. There is only one 
way that leads there — the King's high way. Look, 
monsieur^ you can see the beginning of it down 
there. I hope you wish me well on that road, for 
I shall never take another.'' 

So he bade me good afternoon very courteously 
and walked away among the dunes to his little cot- 
tage at La Panne. 

Looking down through the light haze of evening 
I saw a strip of the straight white road leading east- 
ward across the level land. At the beginning of it 
there was a broken bridge; in places it seemed torn 
up by shells; it . disappeared in the violet dusk. 
But as I looked a vision came. 

The bridge is restored, the road mended and built 
up, and on that highway rides the King in his faded 
uniform with the Queen in white beside him. At 



The King^s High Way 131 

their approach ruined villages rejoice aloud and 
ancient towns break forth into singing. 

In Bruges the royal comrades stand beside the gi- 
gantic monument in the centre of the Great Market, 
and above the shouting of the multitude the music of 
the old belfry floats unheard. Ghent and Antwerp 
have put on their glad raiment, and in their crooked 
streets and crowded squares joy flows like a river 
singing as it goes. Into Brussels I see this man and 
woman ride through a welcome that rises around 
them like the voice of many waters — the welcome of 
those who have waited and suffered, the welcome of 
those to whom liberty and honor were more dear 
than life. In the Grande PlacCy the antique, carven, 
gabled houses are gay with fluttering banners; the 
people delivered from the cruel invader sing lustily 
the Marseillaise and the old songs of Belgium. 

In the midst, Albert and Elizabeth sit quietly 
upon their horses. They have come home. Not by 
the low road of cowardly surrender; not by the crooked 
road of compromise and falsehood; not by the soft 
road of ease and self-indulgence; but by the straight 
road of faith and courage and self-sacrifice— the 
King's High Way. 



THE KING^S JEWEL 

There was an outcry at the door of the king's 
great hall, and suddenly a confusion arose. The 
guards ran thither swiftly, and the people were 
crowded together, pushing and thrusting as if to 
withhold some intruder. Out of the tumult came 
a strong voice shouting, '*I will come in! I must 
see the false king!'' But other voices cried, *'Not 
so — you are mad — you shall not come in thus!" 

Then the king said, '*Let him come in as he will !" 

So the confusion fell apart, and the hall was very 
still, and a man in battered armor stumbled through 
the silence and stood in front of the throne. He 
was breathing hard, for he was weary and angry and 
afraid, and the sobbing of his breath shook him from 
head to foot. But his anger was stronger than his 
weariness and his fear, so he lifted his eyes hardily 
and looked the king in the face. 

It was like the face of a mountain, very calm and 
very high, but not unkind. When the man saw it 
clearly he knew that he was looking at the true king; 
but his anger was not quenched, and he stood stiff, 
with drawn brows, until the king said, ^' Speak!" 

For answer the man drew from his breast a golden 
chain, at the end of which was a jewel set with a 
great blue stone. He looked at it for a moment with 
scorn, as one who had a grievance. Then he threw 
it down on the steps of the throne, and turned on his 
heel to go. 

132 



The King^s Jewel 133 

''Stay/' said the king. ''Whose is this jewel?'* 

"I thought it to be yours," said the man. 

"Where did you get it?'* asked the king. 

"From an old servant of yours/' answered the 
man. "He gave it to me when I was but a lad, and 
told me it came from the king — it was the blue stone 
of the Truth, perfect and priceless. Therefore I must 
keep it as the apple of mine eye, and bring it back 
to the king perfect and unbroken." 

"And you have done this?" said the king. 

"Yes and no," answered the man. 

"Divide your answer," said the king. "First, the 
yes.^' 

The man delayed a moment before he spoke. 
Then his words came slow and firm as if they were 
measured and weighed in his mind. 

"All that man could do, O king, have I done to 
keep this jewel of the Truth. Against open foes and 
secret robbers I have defended it, with faithful 
watching and hard fighting. Through storm and 
peril, through darkness and sorrow, through the 
temptation of pleasure and the bewilderment of 
riches, I have never parted from it. Gold could not 
buy it; passion could not force it; nor man nor woman 
could wile or win it away. Glad or sorry, well or 
wounded, at home or in exile, I have given my life to 
keep the jewel. This is the meaning of the yes.^* 

"It is right," said the king. "And now the no.^^ 

The man answered quickly and with heat. 

"The no also is right, O king! But not by my 
fault. The jewel is not untarnished, not perfect. 
It never was. There is a flaw in the stone. I saw 
it first when I entered the light of your palace-gate. 



134 Stories 

Look, it IS marred and imperfect, a thing of little 
value. It is not the crystal of Truth. I have been 
deceived. You have claimed my life for a fool's 
errand, a thing of naught; no jewel, but a bauble. 
Take it. It is yours.'* 

The king looked not at the gold chain and the blue 
stone, but at the face of the man. He looked quietly 
and kindly and steadily into the eyes full of pain and 
wounded loyalty, until they fell before his look 
Then he spoke gently. 

'*Will you give me my jewel?'' 

The man lifted his eyes in wonder. 

'*It is there," he cried, ''at your feet!" 

'*I spoke not of that," said the king, *'but of your 
life, yourself." 

**My life," said the man faltering, '*what is that? 
Is it not ended?" 

"It is begun," said the king. ''Your life — your- 
self, what of that?" 

*'I had not thought of that," said the man, "only 
of the jewel, not of myself, my life." 

"Think of it now," said the king, "and think 
clearly. Have you not learned courage and hardi- 
ness ? Have not your labours brought you strength ; 
your perils, wisdom; your wounds, patience? Has 
not your task broken chains for you, and lifted you 
out of sloth and above fear? Do you say that the 
stone that has done this for you is false, a thing of 
naught?" 

"Is this true?" said the man, trembling and sink- 
ing on his knee. 

"It is true," answered the king, "as God lives, it 
is true. Come, stand at my right hand. My jewels 



The King's Jewel 135 

that I seek are not dead, but alive. But the stone 
which led you here — look! has it a flaw?" 

He stooped and lifted the jewel. The light of his 
face fell upon it. And in the blue depths of the 
sapphire the man saw a star. 



PART IV 
THINGS TO REMEMBER 



THE ARROW 

Life is an arrow — therefore you must know 
What mark to aim at, how to use the bow — 
Then draw it to the head, and let it go ! 



FOUR THINGS 

Four things a man must learn to do 
If he would make his record true: 
To think without confusion clearly; 
To love his fellow-men sincerely; 
To act from honest motives purely; 
To trust in God and Heaven securely. 



LOVE AND LIGHT 

There are many kinds of love, as many kinds of 

light, 
And every kind of love makes a glory in the night. 
There is love that stirs the heart, and love that gives 

it rest. 
But the love that leads life upward is the noblest 

and the best. 



139 



MIGHT AND RIGHT 

If Might makes Right, Hfe were a wild-beasts' cage; 
If Right makes Might, this were the golden age; 
But now, until we win the long campaign, 
Right must gain Might to conquer and to reign. 



JOY AND DUTY 

**JOY is a Duty'* — so with golden lore 
The Hebrew rabbis taught in days of yore, 
And happy human hearts heard in their speech 
Almost the highest wisdom man can reach. 

But one bright peak still rises far above, 
And there the Master stands whose name is Love, 
Saying to those whom weary tasks employ: 
^*Life is divine when Duty is a Joy.'' 



140 



WORK 

Let me but do my work from day to day, 
In field or forest, at the desk or loom. 
In roaring market-place or tranquil room; 

Let me but find it in my heart to say, 

When vagrant wishes beckon me astray, 

**This is my work; my blessing, not my doom; 
Of all who live, I am the one by whom 

This work can best be done in the right way." 

Then shall I see it not too great, nor small, 
To suit my spirit and to prove my powers; 
Then shall I cheerful greet the laboring hours, 
And cheerful turn, when the long shadows fall 
At eventide, to play and love and rest. 
Because I know for me my work is best. 



141 



THE AMERICANISM OF WASHINGTON 

Hard is the task of the man who at this late day 
attempts to say anything new about Washington. 
But perhaps it may be possible to unsay some of the 
things which have been said, and which, though they 
were at one time new, have never at any time been 
strictly true. 

The character of Washington, emerging splendid 
from the dust and tumult of those great conflicts in 
which he played the leading part, has passed succes- 
sively into three media of obscuration, from each of 
which his figure, like the sun shining through vapors, 
has received some disguise of shape and color. First 
came the mist of mythology, in which we discerned 
the new St. George, serene, impeccable, moving 
through an orchard of ever-blooming cherry-trees, 
gracefully vanquishing dragons with a touch, and 
shedding fragrance and radiance around him. Out 
of that mythological mist we groped our way, to find 
ourselves beneath the rolling clouds of oratory, above 
which the head of the hero was pinnacled in remote 
grandeur, like a sphinx poised upon a volcanic peak, 
isolated and mysterious. That altitudinous figure 
still dominates the cloudy landscapes of the after- 
dinner orator; but the frigid, academic mind has 
turned away from it, and looking through the fog of 
criticism has descried another Washington, not really 
an American, not amazingly a hero, but a very decent 
English country gentleman, honorable, courageous, 
good, shrewd, slow, and above all immensely lucky. 

142 



The Americanism of Washington 143 

Now here are two of the things often said about 
Washington which need, if I mistake not, to be un- 
said: first, that he was a soHtary and inexphcable 
phenomenon of greatness; and second, that he was 
not an American. 

SoHtude, indeed, is the last quality that an intelli- 
gent student of his career would ascribe to him. 
Dignified and reserved he was, undoubtedly; and as 
this manner was natural to him, he won more true 
friends by using it than if he had disguised himself 
in a forced familiarity and worn his heart upon his 
sleeve. But from first to last he was a man who did 
his work in the bonds of companionship, who trusted 
his comrades in the great enterprise even though 
they were not his intimates, and who neither sought 
nor occupied a lonely eminence of unshared glory. 
He was not of the jealous race of those who 

"Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne"; 

nor of the temper of George III, who chose his min- 
isters for their vacuous compliancy. Washington 
was surrounded by men of similar though not of 
equal strength — Franklin, Hamilton, Knox, Greene, 
the Adamses, Jefferson, Madison. He stands in his- 
tory not as a lonely pinnacle like Mount Shasta, ele- 
vated above the plain 

**By drastic lift of pent volcanic fires"; 

but as the central summit of a mountain range, with 
all his noble fellowship of kindred peaks about him, 
enhancing his unquestioned supremacy by their glori- 
ous neighborhood and their great support. 

Among these men whose union in purpose and 



144 Things to Remember 

action made the strength and stability of the re- 
public, Washington was first, not only in the large- 
ness of his nature, the loftiness of his desires, and the 
vigor of his will, but also in that representative qual- 
ity which makes a man able to stand as the true hero 
of a great people. He had an instinctive power to 
divine, amid the confusions of rival interests and the 
cries of factional strife, the new aims and hopes, the 
vital needs and aspirations, which were the common 
inspiration of the people's cause and the creative 
forces of the American nation. The power to un- 
derstand this, the faith to believe in it, and the un- 
selfish courage to live for it, was the central factor of 
Washington's life, the heart and fountain of his splen- 
did Americanism. 

It was denied during his lifetime, for a little while, 
by those who envied his greatness, resented his lead- 
ership, and sought to shake him from his lofty place. 
But he stood serene and imperturbable, while that 
denial, like many another blast of evil-scented wind, 
passed into nothingness, even before the disappear- 
ance of the party strife out of whose fermentation it 
had arisen. By the unanimous judgment of his 
countrymen for two generations after his death he 
was hailed as Pater PatricB ; and the age which con- 
ferred that title was too ingenuous to suppose that 
the father could be of a different race from his own 
offspring. 

But the modern doubt is more subtle, more curi- 
ous, more refined in its methods. It does not spring, 
as the old denial did, from a partisan hatred, which 
would seek to discredit Washington by an accusation 
of undue partiality for England, and thus to break 



The Americanism of Washington 145 

his hold upon the love of the people. It arises, 
rather, like a creeping exhalation, from a modern 
theory of what true Americanism really is: a theory 
which goes back, indeed, for its inspiration to Dr. 
Johnson's somewhat crudely expressed opinion that 
''the Americans were a race whom no other mortals 
could wish to resemble*'; but which, in its later form, 
takes counsel with those British connoisseurs who 
demand of their typical American not depravity of 
morals but deprivation of manners, not vice of heart 
but vulgarity of speech, not badness but bumptious- 
ness, and at least enough of eccentricity to make him 
amusing to cultivated people. 

Not a few of our native professors and critics are 
inclined to accept some features of this view, perhaps 
in mere reaction from the unamusing character of 
their own existence. They are not quite ready to 
subscribe to Mr. Kipling's statement that the real 
American is 

** Unkempt, disreputable, vast," 

but they are willing to admit that It will not do for 
him to be prudent, orderly, dignified. He must have 
a touch of picturesque rudeness, a red shirt in his 
mental as well as his sartorial outfit. The poetry 
that expresses him must recognize no metrical rules. 
The art that depicts him must use the primitive colors 
and lay them on thick. 

I remember reading somewhere that Tennyson had 
an idea that Longfellow, when he met him, would 
put his feet upon the table. And it is precisely be- 
cause Longfellow kept his feet in their proper place, 
in society as well as in verse, that some critics, now- 



146 Things to Remember 

adays, would have us believe that he was not a truly 
American poet. 

Traces of this curious theory of Americanism in its 
application to Washington may now be found in 
many places. You shall hear historians describe him 
as a transplanted English commoner, a second edi- 
tion of John Hampden. You shall read, in a famous 
poem, of Lincoln as 

*'New birth of our new soil, the j^r^^ American." 

That Lincoln was one of the greatest Americans, 
glorious in the largeness of his heart, the vigor of his 
manhood, the heroism of his soul, none can doubt. 
But to affirm that he was the first American is to 
disown and disinherit Washington and Franklin and 
Adams and Jefferson. Lincoln himself would have 
been the man to extinguish such an impoverishing 
claim with huge and hearty laughter. He knew that 
Grant and Sherman and Seward and Farragut and 
the men who stood with him were Americans, just as 
Washington knew that the Boston maltster, and the 
Pennsylvania printer, and the Rhode Island anchor- 
smith, and the New Jersey preacher, and the New 
York lawyer, and the men who stood with him were 
Americans. 

He knew it, I say: and by what divination? By 
a test more searching than any mere peculiarity of 
manners, dress, or speech; by a touchstone able to 
divide the gold of essential character from the alloy 
of superficial characteristics; by a standard which 
disregarded alike Franklin's fur cap and Putnam's 
old felt hatj Morgan's leather leggings and Wither- 
spoon's black silk gown and John Adams's lace ruffles, 



The Americanism of Washington 147 

to recognize and approve, beneath these various 
garbs, the vital sign of America woven into the very- 
souls of the men who belonged to her by a spiritual 
birthright. 

For what is true Americanism, and where does it 
reside? Not on the tongue, nor in the clothes, nor 
among the transient social forms, refined or rude, 
which mottle the surface of human life. The log 
cabin has no monopoly of it, nor is it an immovable 
fixture of the stately pillared mansion. Its home is 
not on the frontier nor in the populous city, not 
among the trees of the wild forest nor the cultured 
groves of Academe. Its dwelling is in the heart. It 
speaks a score of dialects but one language, follows 
a hundred paths to the same goal, performs a thou- 
sand kinds of service in loyalty to the same ideal 
w^hich is its life. True Americanism is this: 

To believe that the inalienable rights of man to 
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are given 
by God. 

To believe that any form of power that tramples 
on these rights is unjust. 

To believe that taxation without representation is 
tyranny, that government must rest upon the con- 
sent of the governed, and that the people should 
choose their own rulers. 

To believe that freedom must be safeguarded by 
law and order, and that the end of freedom is fair 
play for all. 

To believe not in a forced equality of conditions 
and estates, but in a true equalization of burdens, 
privileges, and opportunities. ^ 

To believe that the selfish interests of persons, 



148 Things to Remember 

classes, and sections must be subordinated to the 
welfare of the commonwealth. 

To believe that union is as much a human neces- 
sity as liberty is a divine gift. 

To believe, not that all people are good, but that 
the way to make them better is to trust the whole 
people. 

To believe that a free state should offer an asylum 
to the oppressed, and an example of virtue, sobriety, 
and fair dealing to all nations. 

To believe that for the existence and perpetuity of 
such a state a man should be willing to give his whole 
service, in property, in labor, and in life. 

That is Americanism; an ideal embodying itself in 
a people; a creed heated white hot in the furnace of 
conviction and hammered into shape on the anvil of 
life; a vision commanding men to follow it whitherso- 
ever it may lead them. And it was the subordina- 
tion of the personal self to that ideal, that creed, that 
vision, which gave eminence and glory to Washing- 
ton and the men who stood with him. 

This is the truth that emerges, crystalline and 
luminous, from the conflicts and confusions of the 
Revolution. The men who were able to surrender 
themselves and all their interests to the pure and 
loyal service of their ideal were the men who made 
good, the victors crowned with glory and honor. 
The men who would not make that surrender, who 
sought selfish ends, who were controlled by personal 
ambition and the love of gain, who were willing to 
stoop to crooked means to advance their own for- 
tunes, were the failures, the lost leaders, and, in some 
cases, the men whose names are embalmed in their 



The Americanism of Washington 149 

own infamy. The ultimate secret of greatness is 
neither physical nor intellectual, but moral. It is 
the capacity to lose self in the service of something 
greater. It is the faith to recognize, the will to 
obey, and the strength to follow, a star. 

Washington, no doubt, was pre-eminent among his 
contemporaries in natural endowments. Less bril- 
liant in his mental gifts than some, less eloquent and 
accomplished than others, he had a rare balance of 
large powers which justified Loweirs phrase of **an 
imperial man.** His athletic vigor and skill, his 
steadiness of nerve restraining an intensity of pas- 
sion, his undaunted courage which refused no neces- 
sary risks, and his prudence which took no unneces- 
sary ones, the quiet sureness with which he grasped 
large ideas and the pressing energy with which he 
executed small details, the breadth of his intelligence, 
the depth of his convictions, his power to apply great 
thoughts and principles to every-day affairs, and his 
singular superiority to current prejudices and illu- 
sions — these were gifts in combination which would 
have made him distinguished in any company, in any 
age. 

But what was it that won and kept a free field for 
the exercise of these gifts ? What was it that secured 
for them a long, unbroken opportunity of develop- 
ment in the activities of leadership, until they reached 
the summit of their perfection ? It was a moral 
quality. It was the evident magnanimity of the 
man, which assured the people that he was no self- 
seeker who would betray their interests for his own 
glory or rob them for his own gain. It was the su- 
preme magnanimity of the man, which made the 



150 lltings to Remember 

best spirits of the time trust him implicitly, in war 
and peace, as one who would never forget his duty 
or his integrity in the sense of his own greatness. 

From the first, Washington appears not as a man 
aiming at prominence or power, but rather as one 
under obligation to serve a cause. Necessity was laid 
upon^him, and he met it willingly. After Washing- 
ton's marvellous escape from death in his first cam- 
paign for the defence of the colonies, the Reverend 
Samuel Davies, fourth president of Princeton Col- 
lege, spoke of him in a sermon as '*that heroic youth, 
Colonel Washington, whom I can but hope Provi- 
dence has hitherto preserved in so signal a manner 
for some important service to his country," It was 
a prophetic voice, and Washington was not disobedi- 
ent to the message. Chosen to command the Army 
of the Revolution in 1775, he confessed to his wife 
his deep reluctance to surrender the joys of home, 
acknowledged publicly his feeling that he was not 
equal to the great trust committed to him, and then, 
accepting it as thrown upon him *^by a kind of des- 
tiny,'* he gave himself body and soul to its fulfil- 
ment, refusing all pay beyond the mere discharge of 
his expenses, of which he kept a strict account, and 
asking no other reward than the success of the cause 
which he served. 

''Ah, but he was a rich man," cries the carping 
critic; *'he could afford to do it." How many rich 
men to-day avail themselves of their opportunity to 
indulge in this kind of extravagance, toiling tremen- 
dously without a salary, neglecting their own estate 
for the public benefit, seeing their property dimin- 
ished without complaint, and coming into serious 



The Americanism of Washington 151 

financial embarrassment, even within sight of bank- 
ruptcy, as Washington did, merely for the gratifica- 
tion of a desire to serve the people ? This is indeed 
a very singular and noble form of luxury. But the 
wealth which makes it possible neither accounts for 
its existence nor detracts from its glory. It is the 
fruit of a manhood superior alike to riches and to 
poverty, willing to risk all, and to use all, for the 
common good. 

Was it in any sense a misfortune for the people of 
America, even the poorest among them, that there 
was a man able to advance sixty-four thousand dol- 
lars out of his own purse, with no other security but 
his own faith in their cause, to pay his daily expenses 
while he was leading their armies? This unsecured 
loan was one of the very things, I doubt not, that 
helped to inspire general confidence. Even so the 
prophet Jeremiah purchased a field in Anathoth, in 
the days when Judah was captive unto Babylon, 
paying down the money, seventeen shekels of silver, 
as a token of his faith that the land would some day 
be delivered from the enemy and restored to peace- 
ful and orderly habitation. 

Washington's substantial pledge of property to the 
cause of liberty was repaid by a grateful country at 
the close of the war. But not a dollar of payment 
for the tremendous toil of body and mind, not a dol- 
lar for work ^'overtime,'' for indirect damages to his 
estate, for commissions on the benefits which he 
secured for the general enterprise, for the use of his 
name or the value of his counsel, would he receive. 

A few years later, when his large sagacity perceived 
that the development of internal commerce was one 



152 Things to Remember 

of the first needs of the new country, at a time when 
he held no public office, he became president of a 
company for the extension of navigation on the rivers 
James and Potomac. The Legislature of Virginia 
proposed to give him a hundred and fifty shares of 
stock. Washington refused this, or any other kind 
of pay, saying that he could serve the people better 
in the enterprise if he were known to have no selfish 
interest in it. He was not the kind of a man to 
reconcile himself to a gratuity (which is the Latin- 
ized word for a ''tip*' offered to a person not in liv- 
ery), and if the modern methods of ''coming in on 
the ground-floor'* and "taking a rake-off'* had been 
explained and suggested to him, I suspect that he 
would have described them in language more notable 
for its force than for its elegance. 

It is true, of course, that the fortune which he so 
willingly imperilled and impaired recouped itself 
again after peace was established, and his industry 
and wisdom made him once more a rich man for 
those days. But what injustice was there in that? 
It is both natural and right that men who have 
risked their all to secure for the country at large 
what they could have secured for themselves by other 
means, should share in the general prosperity atten- 
dant upon the. success of their efforts and sacrifices 
for the common good. 

I am sick of the shallow judgment that ranks the 
worth of a man by his poverty or by his wealth at 
death. Many a selfish speculator dies poor. Many 
an unselfish patriot dies prosperous. It is not the 
possesion of the dollar that cankers the soul, it is the 
worship of it. The true test of a man is this: Has 



The Americanism of Washington 153 

he labored for his own interest, or for the general 
welfare ? Has he earned his money fairly or unfairly ? 
Does he use it greedily or generously? What does 
it mean to him, a personal advantage over his fellow- 
men, or a personal opportunity of serving them ? 

There are a hundred other points in Washington's 
career in which the same supremacy of character, 
magnanimity focussed on service to an ideal, is re- 
vealed in conduct. I see it in the wisdom with which 
he, a son of the South, chose most of his generals 
from the North, that he might secure immediate effi- 
ciency and unity in the army. I see it in the gener- 
osity with which he praised the achievements of his 
associates, disregarding jealous rivalries, and ever 
willing to share the credit of victory as he was to 
bear the burden of defeat. I see it in the patience 
with which he suffered his fame to be imperilled for 
the moment by reverses and retreats, if only he might 
the more surely guard the frail hope of ultimate vic- 
tory for his country. I see it in the quiet dignity 
with which he faced the Conway Cabal, not anxious 
to defend his own reputation and secure his own 
power, but nobly resolute to save the army from 
being crippled and the cause of liberty from being 
wrecked. I see it in the splendid self-forgetfulness 
which cleansed his mind of all temptation to take 
personal revenge upon those who had sought to in- 
jure him in that base intrigue. I read it in his letter 
of consolation and encouragement to the wretched 
Gates after the defeat at Camden. I hear the pro- 
longed re-echoing music of it in his letter to General 
Knox in 1798, in regard to military appointments, 
declaring his wish to ''avoid feuds with those who are 



154 Things to Remember 

embarked in the same general enterprise with my- 
self." 

Listen to the same spirit as it speaks in his cir- 
cular address to the governors of the different States, 
urging them to ''forget their local prejudices and 
policies; to make those mutual concessions which 
are requisite to the general prosperity, and in some 
instances to sacrifice their individual advantages to 
the interest of the community." Watch how it 
guides him unerringly through the critical period of 
American history which lies between the success of 
the Revolution and the establishment of the nation, 
enabling him to avoid the pitfalls of sectional and 
partisan strife, and to use his great influence with 
the people in leading them out of the confusion of a 
weak confederacy into the strength of an indissoluble 
union of sovereign States. 

See how he once more sets aside his personal pref- 
erences for a quiet country life, and risks his already 
secure popularity, together with his reputation for 
consistency, by obeying the voice which calls him to 
be a candidate for the Presidency. See how he 
chooses for the cabinet and for the Supreme Court, 
not an exclusive group of personal friends, but men 
who can be trusted to serve the great cause of Union 
with fidelity and power — Jefferson, Randolph, Ham- 
ilton, Knox, John Jay, Wilson, Gushing, Rutledge. 
See how patiently and indomitably he gives himself 
to the toil of office, deriving from his exalted station 
no gain ''beyond the lusire which may be reflected 
from its connection with a power of promoting hu- 
man felicity." See how he retires, at last, to the 
longed-for joys of private life, confessing that his 



The Americanism of Washington 155 

career has not been without errors of judgment, be- 
seeching the Almighty that they may bring no harm 
to his country, and asking no other reward for his 
labors than to partake, *'in the midst of my fellow- 
citizens, the benign influence of good laws under a 
free government, the ever favorite object of my 
heart." 

Oh, sweet and stately words, revealing, through 
their calm reserve, the inmost secret of a life that 
did not flare with transient enthusiasm but glowed 
with unquenchable devotion to a cause! **The ever 
favorite object of -my heart" — how quietly, how sim- 
ply he discloses the source and origin of a sublime con- 
secration, a lifelong heroism ! Thus speaks the vic- 
tor in calm retrospect of the long battle. But if you 
would know the depth and the intensity of the divine 
fire that burned within his breast you must go back 
to the dark and icy days of Valley Forge, and hear 
him cry in passion unrestrained: **If I know my own 
mind, I could, offer myself a living sacrifice to the 
butchering enemy, provided that would contribute 
to the people's ease. I would be a living offering to 
the savage fury and die by inches to save the people." 

^^The ever favorite object of my heart /'^ I strike 
this note again and again, insisting upon it, harping 
upon it; for it is the key-note of the music. It is 
the capacity to find such an object in the success of 
the people's cause, to follow it unselfishly, to serve it 
loyally, that distinguishes the men who stood with 
Washington and who deserve to share his fame. I 
read the annals of the Revolution, and I find every- 
where this secret and searching test dividing the 
strong from the weak, the noble from the base, the 



156 Things to Remember 

heirs of glory from the captives of oblivion and the 
inheritors of shame. It was the unwillingness to sink 
and forget self in the service of something greater 
that made the failures and wrecks of those tempestu- 
ous times, through which the single-hearted and the 
devoted pressed on to victory and honor. 

Turn back to the battle of Saratoga. There were 
two Americans on that field who suffered under a 
great personal disappointment: Philip Schuyler, who 
was unjustly supplanted in command of the army by 
General Gates; and Benedict Arnold, who was de- 
prived by envy of his due share in the glory of win- 
ning the battle. Schuyler forgot his own injury in 
loyalty to the cause, offered to serve Gates in any 
capacity, and went straight on to the end of his noble 
life giving all that he had to his country. But in 
Arnold's heart the favorite object was not his coun- 
try, but his own ambition, and the wound which his 
pride received at Saratoga rankled and festered and 
spread its poison through his whole nature, until he 
went forth from the camp, *^a leper white as snow." 

What was it that made Charles Lee, as fearless a 
man as ever lived, play the part of a coward in order 
to hide his treason at the battle of Monmouth? It 
was the inward eating corruption of that selfish van- 
ity which caused him to desire the defeat of an army 
whose command he had wished but failed to attain. 
He had offered his sword to America for his own 
glory, and when that was denied him, he withdrew 
the offering, and died, as he had lived, to himself. 

What was it that tarnished the fame of Gates and 
Wilkinson and Burr and Conway? What made 
their lives, and those of men like them, futile and 



The Americanism of Washington 157 

inefficient compared with other men whose natural 
gifts were less? It was the taint of dominant sel- 
fishness that ran through their careers, now hiding 
itself, now breaking out in some act of malignity or 
treachery. Of the common interest they were reck- 
less, provided they might advance their own. Dis- 
appointed, in that '*ever favorite object of their 
hearts,'' they did not hesitate to imperil the cause 
in whose service they were enlisted. 

Turn to other cases, in which a charitable judg- 
ment will impute no positive betrayal of trusts, but 
a defect of vision to recognize the claim of the higher 
ideal. • Tory or Revolutionist a man might be, ac- 
cording to his temperament and conviction; but 
where a man begins with protests against tyranny 
and ends with subservience to it, we look for the 
cause. What was it that separated Joseph Gallo- 
way from Francis Hopkinson? It was Galloway's 
opinion that, while the struggle for independence 
might be justifiable, it could not be successful, and 
the temptation of a larger immediate reward under 
the British crown than could ever be given by the 
American Congress in which he had once served. 
What was it that divided the Rev. Jacob Duche 
from the Rev. John Witherspoon? It was Duche's 
fear that the cause for which he had prayed so elo- 
quently in the first Continental Congress was doomed 
after the capture of Philadelphia, and his unwilling- 
ness to go down with that cause instead of enjoying 
the comfortable fruits of his native wit and eloquence 
in an easy London chaplaincy. What was it that 
cut William Franklin off from his professedly prudent 
and worldly-wise old father, Benjamin ? It was the 



158 Things to Remember 

luxurious and benumbing charm of the royal gov- 
ernorship of New Jersey. 

**Professedly prudent'' is the phrase that I have 
chosen to apply to Benjamin Franklin. For the one 
thing that is clear, as we turn to look at him and the 
other men who stood with Washington, is that, 
whatever their philosophical professions may have 
been, they were not controlled by prudence. They 
were really imprudent, and at heart willing to take 
all risks of poverty and death in a struggle whose 
cause was just though its issue was dubious. If it be 
rashness to commit honor and life and property to a 
great adventure for the general good, then these men 
were rash to the verge of recklessness. They refused 
no peril, they withheld no sacrifice, in the following 
of their ideal. 

I hear John Dickinson saying: '*It is not our duty 
to leave wealth to our children, but it is our duty to 
leave liberty to them. We have counted the cost of 
this contest, and we find nothing so dreadful as vol- 
untary slavery.'' I see Samuel Adams, impover- 
ished, living upon a pittance, hardly able to provide 
a decent coat for his back, rejecting with scorn the 
offer of a profitable office, wealth, a title even, to 
win him from his allegiance to the cause of America. 
I see Robert Morris, the wealthy merchant, opening 
his purse and pledging his credit to support the Rev- 
olution, and later devoting all his fortune and his 
energy to restore and establish the financial honor of 
the Republic, with the memorable words, ''The 
United States may command all that I have, except 
my integrity." I hear the proud John Adams say- 
ing to his wife, **I have accepted a seat in the House 



The Americanism of Washington 159 

of Representatives, and thereby have consented to 
my own ruin, to your ruin, and the ruin of our chil- 
dren*'; and I hear her reply, with the tears running 
down her face, ''Well, I am willing in this cause to 
run all risks with you, and be ruined with you, if you 
are ruined/* I see Benjamin Franklin, in the Con- 
gress of 1776, already past his seventieth year, pros- 
perous, famous, by far the most celebrated man in 
America, accepting without demur the difficult and 
dangerous mission to France, and whispering to his 
old friend. Dr. Rush, ''I am old and good for noth- 
ing, but as the store-keepers say of their remnants 
of cloth, *I am but a fag-end, and you may have me 
for what you please.'*' 

Here is a man who will illustrate and prove, per- 
haps better than any other of those who stood with 
Washington, the point at which I am aiming. There 
was none of the glamour of romance about old Ben 
Franklin. He was shrewd, canny, humorous. The 
chivalric Southerners disliked his philosophy, and the 
solemn New-Englanders mistrusted his jokes. He 
made no extravagant claims for his own motives, and 
some of his ways were not distinctly ideal. He was 
full of prudential proverbs, and claimed to be a fol- 
lower of the theory of enlightened self-interest. But 
there was not a faculty of his wise old head which he 
did not put at the service of his country, nor was 
there a pulse of his slow and steady heart which did 
not beat loyal to the cause of freedom. 

He forfeited profitable office and sure preferment 
under the crown, for hard work, uncertain pay, and 
certain peril in behalf of the colonies. He followed 
the inexorable logic, step by step, which led him from 



i6o Things to Remember 

the natural rights of his countrymen to their liberty, 
from their liberty to their independence. He endured 
with a grim humor the revilings of those whom he 
called ** malevolent critics and bug-writers." He 
broke with his old and dear associates in England, 
writing to one of them, 

"You and I were long friends; you are now my enemy and I 
am Yours, 

B. Franklin." 

He never flinched or faltered at any sacrifice of 
personal ease or interest to the demands of his coun- 
try. His patient, skilful, laborious efforts in France 
did as much for the final victory of the American 
cause as any soldier's sword. He yielded his own 
opinions in regard to the method of making the 
treaty of peace with England, and thereby imperilled 
for a time his own prestige. He served as president 
of Pennsylvania three times, devoting all his salary 
to public benefactions. His influence in the Consti- 
tutional Convention was steadfast on the side of 
union and harmony, though in many things he dif- 
fered from the prevailing party. His voice was 
among those who hailed Washington as the only pos- 
sible candidate for the Presidency. His last public 
act was a petition to Congress for the abolition of 
slavery. At his death the government had not yet 
settled his accounts in its service, and his country 
was left apparently his debtor; which, in a sense still 
larger and deeper, she must remain as long as liberty 
endures and union triumphs in the Republic. 

Is not this, after all, the root of the whole matter? 
Is not this the thing that is vitally and essentially 



The Americanism of Washington i6i 

true of all those great men, clustering about Wash- 
ington, whose fame we honor and revere with his? 
They all left the community, the commonwealth, the 
race, in debt to them. This was their purpose and 
the ever favorite object of their hearts. They were 
deliberate and joyful creditors. Renouncing the 
maxim of worldly wisdom which bids men *'get all 
you can and keep all you get," they resolved rather 
to give all they had to advance the common cause, 
to use every benefit conferred upon them in the ser- 
vice of the general welfare, to bestow upon the world 
more than they received from it, and to leave a fair 
and unblotted account of business done with life 
which should show a clear balance in their favor. 

Thus, in brief outline, and in words which seem 
poor and inadequate, I have ventured to interpret 
anew the story of Washington and the men who 
stood with him: not as a stirring ballad of battle and 
danger, in which the knights ride valiantly, and are 
renowned for their mighty strokes at the enemy in 
arms; not as a philosophic epic, in which the develop- 
ment of a great national idea is displayed, and the 
struggle of opposing policies is traced to its conclu- 
sion; but as a drama of the eternal conflict in the 
soul of man between self-interest in its Protean forms, 
and loyalty to the right, service to a cause, allegiance 
to an ideal. 

Those great actors who played in it have passed 
away, but the same drama still holds the stage. 
The drop-curtain falls between the acts; the scenery 
shifts; the music alters; but the crisis and its issues 
are unchanged, and the parts which you and I play 



1 62 Things to Remember 

are assigned to us by our own choice of "the ever 
favorite object of our hearts/' 

Men tell us that the age of Ideals is past, and that 
we are now come to the age of expediency, of polite 
indifference to moral standards, of careful attention 
to the bearing of different policies upon our own per- 
sonal interests. Men tell us that the rights of man 
are a poetic fiction, that democracy has nothing in it 
to command our allegiance unless it promotes our 
individual comfort and prosperity, and that the 
whole duty of a citizen is to vote with his party and 
get an office for himself, or for some one who will 
look after him. Men tell us that to succeed means 
to get money, because with that all other good things 
can be secured. Men tell us that the one thing to do 
is to promote and protect the particular trade, or 
industry, or corporation in which we have a share: 
the laws of trade will work out that survival of the 
fittest which is the only real righteousness, and if we 
survive that will prove that we are fit. Men tell us 
that all beyond this is fantasy, dreaming, Sunday- 
school politics: there is nothing worth living for ex- 
cept to get on in the world ; and nothing at all worth 
dying for, since the age of ideals is past. 

It is past indeed for those who proclaim, or whisper, 
or in their hearts believe, or in their lives obey, this 
black gospel. And what is to follow? An age of 
cruel and bitter jealousies between sections and 
classes; of hatred and strife between the Haves and 
the Have-nots; of futile contests between parties 
which have kept their names and confused their 
principles, so that no man may distinguish them 
except as the Ins and Outs. An age of greedy privi- 



The Americanism of Washington 163 

lege and sullen poverty, of blatant luxury and curi- 
ous envy, of rising palaces and vanishing homes, of 
stupid frivolity and idiotic publicomania ; in which 
four hundred gilded fribbles give monkey-dinners and 
Louis XV revels, while four million ungilded gossips 
gape at them and read about them in the newspapers. 
An age when princes of finance buy protection from 
the representatives of a fierce democracy; when guar- 
dians of the savings which insure the lives of the 
poor, use them as a surplus to pay for the extrava- 
gances of the rich; and when men who have climbed 
above their fellows on golden ladders, tremble at the 
crack of the blackmailer's whip and come down at 
the call of an obscene newspaper. An age when the 
python of poHtical corruption casts its ** rings'' about 
the neck of proud cities and sovereign States, and 
throttles honesty to silence and liberty to death. It 
is such an age, dark, confused, shameful, that the 
sceptic and the scorner must face, when they turn 
their backs upon those ancient shrines where the 
flames of faith and integrity and devotion are flicker- 
ing like the deserted altar-fires of a forsaken wor- 
ship. 

But not for us who claim our heritage in blood and 
spirit from Washington and the men who stood with 
him, — not for us of other tribes and kindred who 

"Have found a fatherland upon this shore," 

and learned the meaning of manhood beneath the 
shelter of liberty, — not for us, nor for our country, 
that dark apostasy, that dismal outlook ! We see 
the palladium of the American ideal — goddess of the 
just eye, the unpolluted heart, the equal hand — 



164 Things to Remember 

standing as the image of Athene stood above the 
upper streams of Simois: 

"It stood, and sun and moonshine rained their light 
On the pure columns of its glen-built hall. 
Backward and forward rolled the waves of fight 
Round Troy — but while this stood Troy could not fall." 

We see the heroes of the present conflict, the men 
whose allegiance is not to sections but to the whole 
people, the fearless champions of fair play. We hear 
from the chair of Washington a brave and honest 
voice which cries that our industrial problems must 
be solved not in the interest of capital, nor of labor, 
but of the whole people. We JDelieve that the liber- 
ties which the heroes of old won with blood and sac- 
rifice are ours to keep with labor and service. 

"All that our fathers wrought 
With true prophetic thought, 
Must be defended." 

No privilege that encroaches upon those liberties is 
to be endured. No lawless disorder that imperils 
them is to be sanctioned. No class that disregards 
or invades them is to be tolerated. 

There is a life that is worth living now, as it was 
worth living in the former days, and that is the 
honest life, the useful life, the unselfish life, cleansed 
by devotion to an ideal. There is a battle that is 
worth fighting now, as it was worth fighting then, 
and that is the battle for justice and equaHty. To 
make our city and our State free in fact as well as 
in name; to break the rings that strangle real liberty, 
end to keep them broken; to cleanse, so far as in our 



The Americanism of Washington 165 

power lies, the fountains of our national life from 
political, commercial, and social corruption; to teach 
our sons and daughters, by precept and example, the 
honor of serving such a country as America — that is 
work worthy of the finest manhood and womanhood. 
The well born are those who are born to do that 
work. The well bred are those who are bred to be 
proud of that work. The well educated are those 
who see deepest into the meaning and the necessity 
of that work. Nor shall their labor be for naught, 
nor the reward of their sacrifice fail them. For high 
in the firmament of human destiny are set the stars 
of faith in mankind, and unselfish courage, and loy- 
alty to the ideal ; and while they shine, the American- 
ism of Washington and the men who stood with him 
shall never, never die. 



LITERATURE 

The public is content with the standard of sala- 
bility. The prigs are content with the standard of 
preciosity. The people need and deserve a better 
standard. It should be a point of honor with men 
of letters to maintain it by word and deed. 

Literature has its permanent marks. It is a con- 
nected growth, and its life-history is unbroken. 
Masterpieces have never been produced by men who 
have had no masters. Reverence for good work is 
the foundation of literary character. The refusal to 
praise bad work, or to imitate it, is an author's per- 
sonal chastity. 

Good work is the most honorable and lasting thing 
in the world. Four elements enter into good work 
in literature: 

An original impulse — not necessarily a new idea, 
but a new sense of the value of an idea. 

A first-hand study of the subject and the material. 

A patient, joyful, unsparing labor for the perfec- 
tion of form. 

A human aim — to cheer, console, purify, or en- 
noble the life of the people. Without this aim litera- 
ture has never sent an arrow close to the mark. 

It is only by good work that men of letters can 
justify their right to a place in the world. The 
father of Thomas Carlyle was a stone-mason, whose 
walls stood true and needed no rebuilding. Carlyle's 
prayer was: **Let me write my books as he built his 
houses.*' 

i66 



EDUCATION 

The amount of money to be expended by a democ- 
racy in public education is to be measured by the 
standard of intelligent manhood which it sets for its 
citizens. The standard, I say, for, after all, in these 
matters it is the silent ideal in the hearts of the 
people which moulds character and guides action. 
What is your ideal of a right American ? The answer 
to that question will determine whether you think 
we ought to do more or less for popular education. 

For my part, I reckon that, as the enlightenment 
and discipline of manhood is the best safeguard of a 
democracy, so it ought to be the object of our chief 
care and our largest expenditure. 

If our naval and military expenses ever surpass or 
even equal our educational expenses, we shall be on 
the wrong track. If we ever put the fortress and the 
fleet above, or even on a level with, the schoolhouse 
and the university, our sense of perspective will be 
out of focus. If we ever spend more to inspire awe 
and fear in other peoples than to cultivate intelligence 
and character in our own, we shall be on the road to 
the worst kind of bankruptcy — a bankruptcy of men. 

We want the common school more generously sup- 
ported and more intelligently directed, so that the 
power to read and think shall become the property 
of all, and so that the principles of morality, which 
must be based on religion, shall be taught to every 
American child. We want the door between the 
common school and the university wide open, so that 

167 



1 68 Things to Remember 

the path which leads upward from the little red 
schoolhouse to the highest temple of learning shall 
be free, and the path that leads downward from aca- 
demic halls to the lowliest dwelling and workshop 
of instruction shall be honorable. We want a com- 
munity of interest and a co-operation of forces 
between the public-school teacher and the college fac- 
ulty. We want academic freedom, so that the in- 
stitutions of learning may be free from all suspicion 
of secret control by the money-bag or the machine. 
We want democratic universities, where a man is 
honored only for what he is and what he knows. 
We want American education, so that every citizen 
shall not only believe in democracy, but know what 
it means, what it costs, and what it is worth. 



SIMPLICITY 

Simplicity, in truth, depends but little on external 
things. It can live in broadcloth or homespun; it 
can eat white bread or black. It is not outward, but 
inward. A certain openness of mind to learn the 
daily lessons of the school of Hf e ; a certain willingness 
of heart to give and to receive that extra service, 
that gift beyond the strict measure of debt, which 
makes friendship possible; a certain clearness of 
spirit to perceive the best in things and people, to 
love it without fear and to cleave to it without mis- 
trust; a peaceable sureness of affection and taste: a 
gentle straightforwardness of action; a kind sincerity 
of speech — these are the marks of the simple life. It 
cometh not with observation, for it is within you. 
I have seen it in a hut. I have seen it in a palace. 
And wherever it is found it is the best prize of the 
school of life, the badge of a scholar well-beloved of 
the Master. 



169 



PART V 
STORY OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE 



STORY OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE FROM A 
CHILD'S POINT OF VIEW 

My father was born in German town, Pennsyl- 
vania, on November lo, 1852; but when he was 
very young the family moved to Brooklyn, and it 
was there that most of his boyhood was spent. 
From the first his relationship with his father was 
a particularly beautiful one, for besides the natural 
trust and reverence, there grew up the closest kind 
of a friendship. It was as comrades that they went 
off for their day's holiday, escaping from the city 
and its flag pavements and brownstone fronts and 
getting out into the fresh country air, to walk through 
the woods and watch the leaves turn red and gold 
and brown and drop to the ground, or to skate in 
the winter, or to listen for the song of the first re- 
turning bluebird in the spring. It was under the 
wise and tender guidance of his father that the boy's 
instinctive love of nature grew and developed. The 
stages of this growth are seen in the chapter entitled 
"A Boy and a Rod." 

Boys went to college earlier in those days than 
they do now, and my father, who had prepared at 
the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, was ready to 
enter Princeton at the age of sixteen. Before he 
went to college he had tried his hand at writing a 
little. During his college course he became deeply 
interested in it, and took the Clio Hall prizes for 
essays and speeches, besides writing along other lines. 
Thus his enthusiasm for literature was increasing all 

173 



174 Story of the Author^ s Life 

the time, and from the first the idea of writing was 
uppermost in his mind. He was Junior orator in 
1872, and at graduation in 1873 his classmates elected 
him for a class-day speaker. He also received honors 
from the faculty in belles-lettres and the English 
Salutatory in recognition of his general scholarship, 
besides the class of 1859 Prize in English Literature. 
Through all his course he was a leading man in the 
classroom, gymnasium, and all class and college 
affairs. 

After teaching for a year in Brooklyn he entered 
Princeton Theological Seminary, and graduated in 
1877. He spent the following year studying at the 
University of Berlin and in travel, and after being 
ordained in 1879 he was called to the United Con- 
gregational Church at Newport, R. I. In 188 1 he 
married my mother, and a few years later was called 
to the Brick Presbyterian Church in New York, 
where he gave seventeen years of the hardest and 
most untiring labor to a work which did not end with 
his own congregation or the city itself, but touched 
thousands of people all over the country. But these 
years of his life were only a step aside to give a help- 
ing hand to two churches which were fast running 
down, and through it all he felt that his real work 
was literature, and it was in that field that his best 
work could be done, though the rush of city life at 
that time gave him very little chance to do it. 

So we were city children, but the woods were our 
inheritance and fishing became our favorite sport. 
Our earliest recollections of my father are in con- 
nection with fishing or camping expeditions. For 
when work pressed too heavily and his health showed 



From a Child^s Point of View 175 

signs of too much wear and tear, he would take a 
few days in the spring and spend them catching the 
first trout of the season out of the Swiftwater, a little 
river in the Alleghany Mountains in Pennsylvania. 
When he was away we always thought that he had 
*'gone fishing/' and our earliest ambition was to go 
with him. Somehow, the fact that I was a girl never 
seemed to make any difference in my castles in the 
air, and all of us, boys and girls alike, grew up with 
the idea that to be like father was the highest possible 
attainment. 

As soon as we were able to read we read his stories 
of camping that came out in the magazines. The 
article on ** Ampersand'' was the first and appeared 
in Harper's Magazine in 1885. But we were too 
young then, of course, to appreciate them, and I am 
afraid we preferred the story of ''The Little Girl in 
the Weir' and ''Tommy Lizard and Frankie Frog," 
and other wonderful tales that he invented and told 
us between supper and bedtime. 

Every Sunday we sat all in a row up in the sec- 
ond pew in the big church and heard him preach. 
Then in the afternoon, or on stormy Sundays, we 
put the chairs in the nursery in rows and one of us 
would preach while the others were congregation or 
choir. This was the nearest we ever came to appre- 
ciating the sermons that were all the time being 
made down in the study just below us. During this 
time he published "The Reality of Religion," "The 
Story of the Psalms," "God and Little Children, ' 
and "The Poetry of Tennyson," besides many maga- 
zine articles. The sermons we liked best, though, 
were the Christmas sermons, which were always 



176 Story of the Author's Life 

stories, and which were afterward pubHshed. Among 
them were ''The Other Wise Man/' ''The Lost 
Word," and "The First Christmas Tree." 

When we saw his books coming out we wore fired 
with the ambition to pubHsh books too, so we had 
a "Book Company" which he encouraged by his 
patronage. We wrote stories, laboriously printed 
them with pen and ink, illustrated them in water- 
colors, and bound them in cardboard and colored 
paper. We soon had quite a library, with contri- 
butions from all the family, and in all this my father 
was our wisest friend and critic. 

So the making of books was a reality to us, and 
we were interested not only in the writing, but in 
the illustrations and binding. I remember one after- 
noon my father had gone out in a hurry, leaving his 
study in great disorder. I was always more fond of 
the study than of any room in the house, probably 
because entrance was forbidden most of the time 
when he w^as working; so taking advantage of his 
absence, I slid in and found the floor covered with 
photographs and prints and piles of books. It looked 
like a veritable workshop, and the disorder delighted 
my heart; so I spent the afternoon there, and finally 
persuaded myself that there would be nothing wrong 
in taking one small photograph of the Madonna and 
Child, which I especially Hked, if I put it back soon. 
I remember what a time I had returning it to its 
place the next day, and then with what interest, 
many months later, I saw the picture reproduced on 
one of the pages of the "Christ Child in Art" which 
came out in 1894. I really felt that I had had a 
part in the making of that book. 



From a ChiWs Point of View 177 

Of the making of rhymes, too, there was no end. 
Sometimes at the dinner-table my father would sit 
perfectly quiet for ten minutes, apparently wrapped 
in thought, while we chattered and discussed the 
doings of the morning or planned for the afternoon; 
and then if we stopped for a moment and looked at 
him we would see a smile dawning on his face, and a 
new-made nonsense rhyme was recited much to our 
delight. We often tried to persuade him to write a 
book for children, but although he seemed to have 
plenty of time to make it up, he was always too 
busy to write it down. 

The best times of all, though, were the summer 
months, when we left the hot, dusty city and went 
down to the little white cottage on the south shore 
of Long Island. Here he first taught us the gentle 
art of fishing, and how well I remember the mornings 
he spent showing us how to catch the minnows for 
bait in a mosquito-net (for catching the bait was 
always part of the game) , and then how he stood with 
us for hours on the high drawbridge across the chan- 
nel, showing us the easy little twitch of the wrist 
that hooks the fish, and how to take him off the 
hook and save the bait. They were only young 
bluefish, or little ''snappers,'' as we called them, and 
seldom more than eight inches long, but we were as 
proud as though they were salmon. Real trout we 
had never caught, though we had often jumped up 
from the supper-table and run to meet him when he 
came in after dark with his basket full of wet, shiny, 
speckled ones. Then how exciting it was to weigh 
the biggest one and hear about the still bigger one 
that got away. That was always a good reason for 



178 Story of the Author^ s Life 

going back the next day, and sometimes, if we had 
been very good, he would take one or two of us up 
under the bridge, and up the narrow, winding stream, 
till we came to where the branches interlaced over- 
head and the boat would go no farther. There he 
left us at the little rustic bridge and waded up the 
stream above, while we sat breathless to hear his 
halloo, which meant he was coming back, and to 
find out what luck he had had in those mysterious 
mazes above the bridge. 

Those were the happiest days of our summer, and> 
as my father says, it was the stream which made 
them so. 

But these were only day's trips, and I longed for 
real camping out. Every fall my father went hun- 
dreds of miles away up to Canada where there were 
real bears and wolves in the woods and where you 
travelled for days without seeing a house or a per- 
son. I had often heard him tell his experiences much 
as they are now recorded in ** Camping Out*' in this 
book. Especially did we become interested in the 
French guides, whose letters to him I read eagerly, 
though slowly, for they were written in French. 

Finally, to my earnest entreaties, there came a sort 
of half promise that I might go some time when I 
was bigger and stronger, but it seemed so indefinite 
that I quite despaired, and great was my surprise 
and joy one day when my father asked me if I would 
like to go camping that very day. The tent and the 
great heavy blankets and rubber sheets were taken 
out of their canvas wrapping where they were lying 
waiting for the fall and Canada. My father put on 
his corduroys and homespun and his old weather- 



From a Child^s Point of View 179 

stained gray felt hat, with the flies stuck all around 
the band, and I donned my oldest sailor suit, and 
with a few pots and pans, a small supply of provisions 
which the family helped us get together, and our two 
fishing-rods, we were ready for the start. We took 
the long trip (about a mile) in an old flat-bottomed 
row-boat, and my mother and little brothers came 
with us to see us settled. Our camping-ground was 
in a pine grove near a small inlet to the salt-water 
bay on which our cottage faced, so that, although 
the stream was blocked with weeds and stumps, the 
easiest way to get there was by water. We reached 
the place about four in the afternoon, moored the 
boat, and carried the tent and provisions up a little 
hill to the place my father had chosen. It seemed 
miles and miles from home, and very wild. We had 
nothing for supper, and I remember wondering 
whether my father would shoot some wild animal or 
whether we would catch some fish. The latter course 
was chosen, much to my disappointment, and after 
the tent was pitched, the provisions unpacked, and 
my mother and brothers had left us all alone, we 
started out with rods and tackle to catch our supper. 
Fortunately, the fish were biting well, and with my 
rising appetite they came more and more frequently, 
until we had a basketful. Then we had to stop by 
the stream to prepare them for the pan, so it was 
almost dark when we threaded our way back through 
the deep forest of pines to the little white tent. But 
we soon built the fire and made things look more 
cheerful. How good the fish looked as they sizzled 
away over the glowing fire, and they tasted even bet- 
ter, eaten right out of the same pan they were cooked 



i8o Story of the Author'' s Life 

in. That was one of the best suppers I ever recall 
eating, and surely half the pleasure came from the 
comradeship of a father who shared and sympathized 
with my thoughts and entered into my fun with the 
spirits of a boy. 

It was an experience which I shall never forget, 
and which, like most of the delightful ''first'' things 
I have done, I shall always associate with my father. 
For he was our guide in everything; and besides the 
fishing trips, there were long Sunday afternoon walks 
through the woods and a growing acquaintance with 
the songs of the birds and with the wild flowers. He 
made us listen for the first notes of the bluebird in 
spring and to the ''Sweet — sweet — sweet — very merry 
cheer" of the song sparrows that sang in the lilac 
hedge around our cottage. It was there that he 
wrote "The Song Sparrow" and a good many of the 
poems that came out later in a book called "The 
Builders, and Other Poems." But my first realiza- 
tion that my father was a poet came when my two 
brothers and myself were brought down here to 
Princeton in 1896 to hear him read the ode at the 
one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Princeton 
College. How proud we felt to be the only children 
in that grave assembly of gowned and hooded scholars, 
and how fine it was to see our own father standing 
there on the platform and reciting the ode for his 
Alma Mater, the college we had cheered for and 
whose colors we had worn through defeat or victory 
every spring and fall. To be sure we were interested 
in Harvard too, because he had often been elected 
preacher to the university there, and in Yale, be- 
cause he had been Lyman Beecher Lecturer there, 



From a ChilcTs Point of View i8i 

and in other colleges where he had received academic 
honors; but we were ever loyal to Princeton, where 
he and our grandfather and our great-grandfather 
had been students. 

Our Dutch ancestry was brought to our minds the 
year he was President of the Holland Society, and 
our Presbyterianism emphasized when he became 
Moderator of the General Assembly of that church 
and brought home a fine white ivory gavel which 
some Alaskan mission church had sent to him and 
which he now keeps on one of the library bookcases. 
Thus in all his work, as well as in his fishing, we have 
followed him, and he takes us into his plans and tells 
us as much as we can understand of what he is doing. 

In 1900 he was called to be the first occupant of 
the Murray chair of English Literature in Princeton 
University, and we now have, what we have always 
wanted, a home in the country. Here, though he 
has left the strain and rush of city life, he seems 
busier than ever, for he still preaches every Sunday, 
usually at university and college chapels, and his 
calendar is always filled with lecture engagements all 
over the country. Preacher, poet, lecturer — his pro- 
fessions are many, though his aim is one, to lift the 
' world up and make it a better, happier one than he 
found it. 

But with all this work there is a shelf in the library 
at Avalon on which the line of books is steadily in- 
creasing. That is the shelf where my father's books, 
each one of which he has especially bound and gives 
to my mother, are kept. Two of the latest additions 
to this shelf are the books of short stories, ''The Rul- 
ing Passion'' and ''The Blue Flower," and I think 



1 82 Story of the Author^ s Life 

we have been more interested in the making of these 
two than in any others. For we have seen the stories 
grow and have known many of the characters that 
he has so faithfully drawn. The scenes of some are 
laid in places that we are very familiar with and 
many of the incidents have taken place before our 
eyes. My father keeps a small black leather note- 
book, one that would fit in a jacket pocket. When a 
story comes to him he jots down a word or two — a 
phrase, or something that suggests what is in his 
mind and would call up the same train of thought — 
then puts the note-book away till he has had time 
to think the story out in full, or, more often, until he 
has time to write it down. Sometimes it is only a 
catchword, sometimes half a page, but he always 
seems to have two or three stories ahead of him wait- 
ing to be written. 

About three summers ago there were so many 
stories on his waiting-list that my father knew they 
would give him no peace of mind until written down 
in black and white. We were spending that summer 
on an island off the coast of Massachusetts, and our 
little cottage was in the midst of all the merry-mak- 
ing, near the ocean, and facing a field where all sizes 
of boys played base-ball every afternoon. It was 
not at all an atmosphere for writing, so my father, 
on one of his walks of discovery to the middle of the 
island, found an old deserted farm-house standing 
back from the road on a little rise of ground. There 
were apple-trees around it and a grape-vine straggling 
over the trellised porch, and from the window of 
what once was probably the sitting-room there was 
a tiny glimpse of the blue sea far away in the dis- 



From a Child^s Point of View 183 

tance. No discordant sounds reached this quiet 
spot, and here my father spent a good part of the 
summer writing a great many of the stories in ''The 
Blue Flower/' He would go out to his farm-house 
study every morning, returning in body, though not 
in spirit, to lunch, and then go out again to work for 
the rest of the afternoon. As soon as a story was 
finished, we would gather, after supper, around the 
lamp and he would read it to us. What a delight it 
was to recognize some of our old friends or familiar 
places, or to make the acquaintance of new and even 
better ones ! We were sorry when the stories were 
all finished and the book had gone to the publisher. 
My father's latest book is ''Music, and Other 
Poems/' and most of these were written here in his 
study at Avalon, though some he wrote down in 
Augusta, Ga., where he spent part of last winter. 
The ''Ode to Music" he was almost two years in 
writing, taking up, of course, other things in the 
mean time. Several days ago the following came to 
my father from James Whitcomb Riley: 

" Music ! yea, and the airs you play — 
Out of the faintest Far-away 
And the sweetest, too; and the dearest here, 
With its quavering voice but its bravest cheer — 
The prayer that aches to be all expressed — 
The kiss of love at its tenderest. 
Music — music with glad heart-throbs 
Within it; and music with tears and sobs 
Shaking it, as the startled soul 
Is shaken at shriek of the fife and roll 
Of the drums; — then as suddenly lulled again 
By the whisper and lisp of the summer rain. 
Mist of melodies, fragrance fine — 
The bird-song flicked from the eglantine 



184 Story of the Aiithor^s Life 

With the dews where the springing bramble throws 

A rarer drench on its ripest rose, 

And the winged song soars up and sinks 

To a dove's dim coo by the river brinks, 

Where the ripple's voice still laughs along 

Its glittering path of light and song. 

Music, O poet, and all your own 

By right of capture, and that alone — 

For in it we hear the harmony 

Born of the earth and the air and the sea, 

And over and under it, and all through. 

We catch the chime of the Anthem, too." 

But in Spite of his many duties he still finds time 
to fish, and since we have lived here he has taken 
me on a real camping trip in Canada and taught me 
to catch real salmon, as well as showing me the 
scenes of a good many of his stories in ^^The Ruling 
Passion.*' So now I know what real fisherman's 
luck is, for though *'we sometimes caught plenty and 
sometimes few, we never came back without a good 
catch of happiness,** and my father has taught me 
the real meaning of the last stanza of **The Angler's 
Reveille": 

**Then come, my friend, forget your foes and leave your fears 
behind, 
And wander out to try your luck with cheerful, quiet mind; 
For be your fortune great or small, you'll take what God may 

give. 
And through the day your heart shall say, 
'Tis luck enough to live,'* 

Brooke van Dyke. 

Avalon, Princeton, N. J., 
January 21, 1905. 



HENRY VAN DYKE 

Born: Germantown, Pa., November lo, 1852; son 
of Reverend Henry Jackson and Henrietta (Ash- 
mead) van Dyke. Graduated Polytechnic Institute 
of Brooklyn, 1869; A.B., Princeton, 1873; A.M., 1876; 
graduated Princeton Theological Seminary, 1877; 
University of Berlin, 1877-79; (D.D., Princeton, 
1884; Harvard, 1894; Yale, 1896; LL.D., Union, 1898; 
Washington and Jefferson, 1902; Wesleyan, 1903; 
Pennsylvania, 1906; Geneva, Switzerland, 1909. 
D.C.L., University of Oxford, England, 1917). Mar- 
ried : Ellen Reid, of Baltimore, December 13, 1881. 
Ordained Presbyterian Ministry, 1879. Pastor United 
Congregational Church, Newport, R. I., 1879-82; 
Brick Presbyterian Church, New York, 1 883-1 900, 
1902, 191 1 ; Professor English Literature, Princeton, 
1900-13; U. S. Minister to the Netherlands and Lux- 
embourg, 1913-17 (resigned); American lecturer at 
University of Paris, 1908-9. Moderator General 
Assembly Presbyterian Church in U. S. A., 1902-3. 
President Holland Society, 1900-01; National Insti- 
tute Arts and Letters, 1909-10; Member American 
Academy of Arts and Letters ; Honorable Fellow Royal 
Society of Literature, 1910. Membre de la Societe 
des Gens de Lettres. Commandeur de la Legion 
d'Honneur. 



185 



AUTHOR 

'*The Reality of Religion,'* 1884. 
''The Story of the Psalms/' 1887. 
'*The National Sin of Literary Piracy," 1888. 
''The Poetry of Tennyson," 1889. 
"Sermons to Young Men," 1893. 
"The Christ Child in Art," 1894. 
"Little Rivers," 1895. 
"The Other Wise Man," 1896. 
"The Gospel for an Age of Doubt," 1896. 
"The First Christmas Tree," 1897. 
"The Builders, and Other Poems," 1897. 
"Ships and Havens," 1897. 
"The Lost Word," 1898. 
"The Gospel for a World of Sin," 1899. 
"Fisherman's Luck," 1899. 
"The ToIHng of Felix, and Other Poems," 1900. 
"The Poetry of the Psalms," 1900. 
"The Friendly Year," 1900. 
"The RuHng Passion," 1901. 
"The Blue Flower," 1902. 
"The Open Door," 1903. 
"Music, and Other Poems," 1904. 
"The School of Life," 1905. 
"Essays in Application," 1905. 
"The Spirit of Christmas," 1905. 
"The Americanism of Washington," 1906. 
"Days Off," 1907. 
"The House of Rimmon," 1908. 
*Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land," 1908. 

186 



Story of the Author^ s Life 187 

''Le Genie de TAmerique'' (Paris), 1909. 

*'The White Bees, and Other Poems,'' 1909. 

'* Collected Poems," 191 1. 

'*The Sad Shepherd," 1911. 

'*The Mansion," 1911. 

'*The Unknown Quantity," 1912. 

''The Lost Boy," 1914. 

**The Grand Canyon, and Other Poems," 1914. 

'* Fighting for Peace," 1917. 

''The Red Flower," 1917. 

''Golden Stars," 1919. 

"Studies in Tennyson," 1920. 



EDITOR 

"The Gateway Series of English Texts." 

"Select Poems of Tennyson." 

"Little Masterpieces of English Poetry" (6 vols.) 

Avalon Edition of "Collected Works," 1920. 



THE SCRIBNER SERIES 
of SCHOOL READING 



A Uniform supplementary reading series, specially edited for use in elemen- 
tary schools and carefully graded in accordance with results obtained from actual 
tests in the class room. The main purpose of this series is to introduce into the 
class room the best literature, particularly the Writings of those contemporary 
•American authors who naturally appeal to young pe6ple, and to bring this ex- 
cellent literature within the reach of all schools by offering the books at a very 
tnoderate price. The volumes are profusely illustrated, and handsomely and 
durably bound. 

Fanciful Tales. By Frank R. Stockton. Edited by Julia E. 
Langworthy. Illustrated. 

Hans Brinker, By Mary Mapes Dodge. Illustrated. 

A Child's Garden of Verses. By Robert Louis Stevenson. 
Illustrated. 

Some Merry Adventures of Robin Hood. By Howard Pyle. 
Illustrated by the author. 

America First. By Frances Nimmo Greene. Illustrated. 

The Hoosier School Boy. By Edward Eggleston. Illus- 
trated. 

Krag and Johnny Bear* Being the Personal Histories of Krag, 
Randy, Johnny Bear, and Chink. By Ernest Thompson 
Seton. Illustrated. 

Lobo, Rag, and Vixen. Selections from "Wild Animals I Have 
Known.'* By Ernest Thompson Seton. With 4 full-page 
and many other illustrations from drawings by the Author. 

Hero Tales Told in School. By James Baldwin. Illustrated. 

The Page Story Book. Selections for School Reading by Thomas 

Nelson Pace. Edited by Frank E. Spalding and Gather- 

INE T. Bryce. 

The van Dyke Book. Selections for School Reading. By Henry 
VAN Dyke. Edited by Professor Edwin Mims. A new edition, 
revised, with an introduction by Maxwell Struthers Burt. 
Illustrated. 

The Howells Story Book. By William Dean Howells. Selected 
and arranged by Mary E. Burt. Illustrated by Miss Howells. 



The Eugene Field Book. Verses, Stories, and Letters for School 
Reading. By Eugene Field. Edited by Mary E. Burt 
and Mary L. Ca^le. With an Introduction by George W. 
Cable. Illustrated. 

The Lanier Book. Selections for School Reading. By Sidney 
Lanier. Edited and arranged by Mary E. Burt, m co-oper- 
ation with Mrs. Lanier, Illustrated. 

The Cable Story Book. Selections for School Reading. By 
George W. Cable. Edited by Mary E. Burt and Lucy L. 
Cable. Illustrated. 

The Roosevelt Book. ScJectioas from the wviiic\gs of Theo*^ 
do re Roosevelt, with an introduction by Robert Bridges. 
Illustrated. 

Things Will Take a Turn. By Beatrice Harraden. Illus- 
trated. 

Around the World in the Sloop Spray. By Captain Joshua 
Slocum. Illustrated. 

Twelve Naval Captains. With portraits. By Molly Elliott 
Seawell. 

Poems of American Patriotism. Chosen by Brander Mat- 
thews. 

Children's Stories of American Literature, 1660-1860. By 
Henrietta Christian Wright. 

Children's Stories of American Literature, 1 860-1896. By 
Henrietta Christian Wright. 

Children's Stories in American History. By Henrietta Chris- 
tian Wright. 

Children's Stories in American Progress. By Henrietta Chris- 
tian Wright. 

Herakles, the Hero of Thebes, and Other Heroes of the Myth. 
By Mary E. Burt and Zenaide Ragezin. Illustrated. 

Odysseus: The Hero of Ithaca. By Mary E. Burt. Illustrated. 

The Boy General. By Mrs. George A. Custer and Mary E. 
Burt. Illustrated. 

Don Quixote De La Mancha. By Miguel de Cervantes. From 
the translations of Duffield and Shelton. By Mary E. Burt 
and Lucy Leffingwell Cable. 



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